These data are the Goddard Satellite-based Surface Turbulent Fluxes Version-2c Dataset recently produced through a MEaSURES funded project led by Dr. Chung-Lin Shie (UMBC/GEST, NASA/GSFC), converted to HDF-EOS5 format. The stewardship of this HDF-EOS5 dataset is part of the MEaSUREs project.

GSSTF version 2b (Shie et al. 2010, Shie et al. 2009) generally agreed better with available ship measurements obtained from several field experiments in 1999 than GSSTF2 (Chou et al. 2003) did in all three flux components, i.e., latent heat flux [LHF], sensible heat flux [SHF], and wind stress [WST] (Shie 2010a,b). GSSTF2b was also found favorable, particularly for LHF and SHF, in an intercomparison study that accessed eleven products of ocean surface turbulent fluxes, in which GSSTF2 and GSSTF2b were also included (Brunke et al. 2011).

However, a temporal trend appeared in the globally averaged LHF of GSSTF2b, particularly post year 2000. Shie (2010a,b) attributed the LHF trend to the trends originally found in the globally averaged SSM/I Tb's, i.e., Tb(19v), Tb(19h), Tb(22v) and Tb(37v), which were used to retrieve the GSSTF2b bottom-layer (the lowest atmospheric 500 meter layer) precipitable water [WB], then the surface specific humidity [Qa], and subsequently LHF. The SSM/I Tb's trends were recently found mainly due to the variations/trends of Earth incidence angle (EIA) in the SSM/I satellites (Hilburn and Shie 2011a,b). They have further developed an algorithm properly resolving the EIA problem and successfully reproducing the corrected Tb's by genuinely removing the "artifactitious" trends. An upgraded production of GSSTF2c (Shie et al. 2011) using the corrected Tb's has been completed very recently.

GSSTF2c shows a significant improvement in the resultant WB, and subsequently the retrieved LHF - the temporal trends of WB and LHF are greatly reduced after the proper adjustments/treatments in the SSM/I Tb's (Shie and Hilburn 2011). In closing, we believe that the insightful "Rice Cooker Theory" by Shie (2010a,b), i.e., "To produce a good and trustworthy 'output product' (delicious 'cooked rice') depends not only on a well-functioned 'model/algorithm' ('rice cooker'), but also on a genuine and reliable 'input data' ('raw rice') with good quality" should help us better comprehend the impact of the improved Tb on the subsequently retrieved LHF of GSSTF2c.

This is the Yearly Climatology product; data are projected to equidistant Grid that covers the globe at 1x1 degree cell size, resulting in data arrays of 360x180 size. Starting with Version 2c, there is only one set of Combined data, "Set1". The Monthly Climatology HDF-EOS5 file also contains one extra grid of NCEP Climatology, "NCEP". A finer resolution, 0.25 deg, of this product has been released as Version 3.

The yearly temporal and one-degree spatial resolution of the product can be used to examining climate variability at these scales. Oceanic evaporation contributes to the net fresh water input to the oceans and drives the upper ocean density structure and consequently the circulation of the oceans.

The short name for this product is GSSTFYC.