Bull. Jpn. Soc. Fish. Oceanogr. 68(2), Page 71-86, 2004   Development of PISCES - A user-friendly software for PC to produce sea surface temperature maps from high resolution satellite data around Japan Yoshihiro Okada†1,3, Makoto Moriwaki2 and Kedarnath Mahapatra3 1 School of Marine Science and Technology, TOKAI University, 3-20-1 Orido, Shimizu, Shizuoka 424-8610, Japan 2 Earth Weather INC., 1-2-20 Nakamachidai, Tsuzuki-ku, Yokohama 224-0041, Japan 3 Tokai University Frontier Ocean Research Center (T-FORCE), TOKAI University, 3-20-1 Orido, Shimizu, Shizuoka 424-8610, Japan †e-mail: okada@scc.u-tokai.ac.jp To provide user-friendly daily sea surface temperature (SST) maps from high resolution satellite imagery of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) series of satellites in seas around Japan, we developed the PISCES-PC-based Imaging Software for Continuous Estimation of SST. The software system is aimed at achieving judicious removal of spurious cloudy pixels; oceanographically and statistically sound interpolation of SST for the cloud covered pixels and continuous regeneration of daily SST maps through a computerized automatic process. In this paper, we describe the configuration of the PISCES along with the statistical algorithms used to achieve various components of the software. The PISCES-interpolated SST output from the software for a sample day was validated against the real SST field for the same day, and both values were in good agreement (R2=0.999). The PISCES-generated sample images for two selected areas near the Sanriku Coast and the Boso East Coast are presented in this paper as case studies, to demonstrate utility of the software to deal with the pattern of mesoscale as well as localized ocean surface thermal features. Despite limitation in tracing transient features such as undulations and eddies in the coastal oceans, the products were found to be useful in depicting major mesoscale features, and could meet the requirements of various potential users, mainly in the field of marine fisheries. Key words: PC-software, AVHRR/NOAA, SST interpolation, SST maps, fisheries application