AMSR on ADEOS-II detects microwave emissions from the Earth's surface and atmosphere. AMSR-E aboard on NASA's Earth observation satellite "Aqua" is a modified version of AMSR.

Three-day average AMSR-E data (June 2-4 UTC, 2002) of sea-surface temperature (SST) was acquired. SST was estimated by using the 6.925-GHz vertical polarization channel, with atmospheric and sea-surface wind corrections by other frequency channels. The greatest advantage of microwave observation is the capability to estimate SST through clouds. In addition, the 6.925-GHz channels enable us to observe SST over the global oceans including cold SST regions, while the TRMM/TMI 10-GHz channels are only appropriate for warmer SST regions. Land areas are masked in gray, and white indicates areas with missing data due to the presence of sea ice and strong precipitation. Many of the higher SST values along coastlines are not real but result from microwave emission from land areas. This effect will be improved by algorithm validation. Almost the entire ocean area is covered by short-term observation, as shown in the upper global image. The lower image is a close-up view around Japan. The Kuroshio Current lying in the ocean off eastern Japan is clearly observed (orange).

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