Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data - HOAPS 3.2

The Hamburg Ocean Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS) set is a completely satellite based climatology of precipitation, evaporation and freshwater budget (evaporation minus precipitation) as well as related turbulent heat fluxes and atmospheric state variables over the global ice free oceans. All variables are derived from SSM/I passive microwave radiometers, except for the SST, which is taken from AVHRR measurements. The data set includes multi-satellite averages, inter-sensor calibration, and an efficient sea ice detection procedure. Main changes in this version are a prolonged time series, now containing data for the time period from 1987 until end of 2008 and an updated processing of the level-1 SSM/I brightness temperatures. The physical retrieval algorithms remain unchanged compared to HOAPS 3.0. All HOAPS products have global coverage, i.e., within ±180° longitude and ±80° latitude and are only defined over the ice-free ocean surface. The products are available as monthly averages and 6-hourly composites on a regular latitude/longitude grid with a spatial resolution of 0.5° x 0.5° degrees.