Sea surface temperature monitor and predict the El Niño phenomenon. Weather satellites have been available to determine sea surface temperature information since 1967, with the first global composites created during 1970. Since 1982, satellites have been increasingly utilized to measure SST and have allowed its spatial and temporal variation to be viewed more fully. Satellite measurements of SST are in reasonable agreement with in situ temperature measurements. The satellite measurement is made by sensing the ocean radiation in two or more wavelengths within the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum or other parts of the spectrum which can then be empirically related to
Significant wave height or RSMCs. In their weather products, they give ocean wave height forecasts in significant wave height. In the United States, NOAA's National Weather Service is the RSMC for a portion of the North Atlantic, and a portion of the North Pacific. The Ocean Prediction Center and the Tropical Prediction Center's Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch (TAFB) issue these forecasts. RSMCs use wind-wave models as tools to help predict the sea conditions. In the U.S., NOAA's WAVEWATCH III model is used heavily. A "significant wave height" is also defined similarly, from the "wave spectrum", for the different systems that make up