CHARACTERIZATION AND CORRECTION OF THE LATITUDINAL AND SEASONAL BIAS IN BEC SMOS SEA SURFACE SALINITY MAPS

The quality of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) maps has been noticeably improved in the last two years, in particular those produced at the Barcelona Expert Center (BEC). However, the BEC SSS maps are still affected by a latitudinal and seasonal bias. In this work, we comprehensively characterize the residual latitudinal and seasonal biases, which are used to correct de retrieved SSS, leading to a new generation of higher-quality SSS maps. The shape and regularity of this bias suggests that the effect, which produces this error, is not a poor characterization of the galaxy, some residual Total Electron Content (TEC) effect, or a poor characterization of the systematic Sea Surface Temperature (SST) effects on the SSS retrieval. It appears to be related to a geometrical effect associated to the relative position between the SMOS antenna, the Sun and the Earth.