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High loads of atmospheric aerosols introduce large errors in satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) retrievals. Airborne plumes of desert dust from North Africa are the most evident and persistent and cover large areas of the tropical Atlantic Ocean. We propose a methodology to correct for Saharan dust effects on sea surface temperatures derived from the AVHRR sensor. This method links SST errors in AVHRR estimates with concentrations of absorbing atmospheric aerosols as estimated by the Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) Aerosol Index. Errors in the SST algorithm increase with increasing aerosol index estimates. To avoid these errors a correction term based on the TOMS aerosol index is incorporated to the AVHRR SST algorithm. (C) 2003 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.