Figure 1 . Repeat XBT and TSG lines (black) collected in the Southern Ocean between June 2002 and February 2004 for (a) Drake Passage transects and (b) Hobart to Dumont d'Urville transects. The colored dots indicate the mean temperature difference between AMSR-E and XBT at different locations. The color scale is from -1°C (dark blue) to 1°C (red) but actual temperature differences may exceed 1°C in places. Contours indicate mean temperatures.

Figure 2 .  Scatter plots of sea surface temperature from MODIS against that from AMSR-E (dot) for (a) Drake Passage transects, and (b) transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville. Circles indicate these data within 5 hours of in situ XBT observations.

Figure 3 . Spatial distribution of the temporal mean temperature difference (two-year average) between AMSR-E and Reynolds OI SST in the region of (a) Drake Passage and (b) south of Australia.

Figure 4 . Examples of the sea surface temperature (a) across Drake Passage and (b) between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville as a function of latitude. The four different SSTs are from XBT (blue), ascending AMSR-E (green), descending AMSR-E (red), and Reynolds (black), respectively.

Figure 6 . Changes of temperature difference with increasing time separation for Drake Passage transects. The lines (daytime – solid, nighttime – dashed) indicate the temperature difference and the shading area shows the standard error.

Figure 7 . Same as Fig.6 but for summertime transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 9 . Similar to Fig.8, but for wintertime. No wintertime in situ SST observations are available for the transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 10 . Scatter plots of sea surface temperature from XBT/TSG (x-axis) against that from ascending AMSR-E (dot) and descending AMSR-E (circle) for summer (left panels) and winter (right panels), respectively, for Drake Passage transects.

Figure 11 . Same as Fig.10 but for summertime transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 12 . Scatter plots of summertime temperature difference against wind speed (left panels) and atmospheric water vapor (right panels) for (a) and (b) Drake Passage transects and (c) and (d) transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville. Data with wind speeds less than 6 ms^-1 and differences between the measurement time of AMSR-E and XBT longer than 5 hours are removed.

Figure 13 . Scatter plots of temperature difference between nighttime AMSR-E and XBT against local temperature for (a) Drake Passage transects and (b) transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 14 . Scatter plots of temperature difference (AMSR-E minus MODIS) against (a) wind speeds and (b) water vapor for the Drake Passage transects. (c) and (d) are similar to (a) and (b), but for transects between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 15 . Scatter plots of the (a) Reynolds OI SST against XBT measurements across Drake Passage and (b) Reynolds OI SST against TSG measurements.

Figure 16 . Scatter plots of the Reynolds OI SST against XBT measurements between Hobart and Dumont d'Urville.

Figure 17 . Three-month averaged temperature difference (AMSR minus XBT/TSG) from all data (stars). Dots and circles are the temperature differences for daytime and nighttime ∆SST separately. The corresponding standard error is indicated by the vertical lines.

Figure 18 . Scatter plots of the XBT SST and TSG SST at Drake Passage.

Figure 19 Mean SST difference (June 2002 - December 2004) between AMSR and MODIS (from Aqua), and wind speed, water vapor, and cloud in regions of Drake Passage (left column) and south of Australia (right column).

Figure 20 Example of the changes of delT (AMSRE minus MODIS) with changes of wind speed, water vapor and cloud at one location.