Monitoring of thermal fronts sensed by infrared (IR) radiometers aboard satellites began at the Centre de Météorologie Spatiale (CMS Lannion) in April 1979. The first monthly climatology of these fronts in the whole Mediterranean was published soon after (CHAMPAGNE-PH/LTPPE and HARANG, 1982). Between 1979 and 1987, the techniques used at CMS to produce the thermal structure maps remained unchanged until at the end of 1987, the introduction of interactive image processors completely modified the techniques and the products. This atlas takes the opportunity of this long (with respect to the usual lifetime of techniques and materials) period of stability (1980-1987) to try to describe the main features of the sea surface thermal structures in the Mediterranean Sea which have been observed daily throughout these years in the images of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) aboard the satellite series of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).