Mesoscale ocean variability signal recovered from altimeter data in the SW Atlantic Ocean: a comparison of orbit error correction in three Geosat data sets

Orbit error is one of the largest sources of uncertainty in studies of ocean dynamics using satellite altimeters. The sensitivity of GEOSAT mesoscale ocean variability estimates to altimeter orbit precision in the SW Atlantic is analyzed using three GEOSAT data sets derived from different orbit estimation methods: (a) the original GDR data set, which has the lowest orbit precision, (b) the GEM-T2 set, constructed from a much more precise orbital model, and (c) the Sirkes-Wunsch data set, derived from additional spectral analysis of the GEM-T2 data set. Differences among the data sets are investigated for two tracks in dynamically dissimilar regimes of the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean, by comparing: (a) distinctive features of the average power density spectra of the sea height residuals and (b) space-time diagrams of sea height residuals. The variability estimates produced by the three data sets are extremely similar in both regimes after removal of the time-dependent component of the orbit error using a quadratic fit. Our results indicate that altimeter orbit precision with appropriate processing plays only a minor role in studies of mesoscale ocean variability.Erro orbital tem sido a principal fonte de incerteza no processamento de dados altimétricos. Recentes conjuntos de dados, baseados em modelos de predição orbital mais avançados c em novas metodologias de correção de erro, já foram capazes de reduzir o erro orbital de ate uma ordem de magnitude em comparação com os GDRs originais. Ncslc trabalho nós avaliamos os resultados dessas melhores eslimativas na descrição da variabilidade "meso- escalar" na parte sudoeste do oceano Atlântico Sul. Comparamos resultados obtidos cm tres conjuntos de dados: os GDRs originais c os conjuntos de dados GEM-T2 c Sirkes-Wunsch. Para garantir a "sensibilidade" das estimativas dc variabilidade mcso-cscalar quanto às mudanças na precisão orbital, utilizamos as mesmas "correções ambientais" c o mesmo método dc processamento de dados no tratamento dos três conjuntos dc dados. Para investigar as possíveis diferenças entre os valores de variabilidade meso-escalar produzidos pelos tres conjuntos dc dados utilizamos as características espectrais dos residuais de "amplitude do mar" obtidas antes c depois da remoção do erro orbital "dependente" do tempo. O fato da componente mcso-cscalar do espectro quase não ter sido afetada pela remoção do maior comprimento de onda do sinal (o que corresponde principalmente ao erro orbital) sugere que muito pouco do sinal meso-escalar foi realmente removido através deste processo. Um "pico" menor no espectro da "faixa" B confirma uma variabilidade oceânica local menor com respeito à faixa A. Uma análise mais profunda demonstra que, após a remoção do erro orbital, os residuais de amplitude do mar são incrivelmente similares entre os três conjuntos de dados para uma determinada faixa. Tal resultado sugere que a precisão orbital contribui apenas parcialmente para o estudo da variabilidade meso-escalar oceânica. Esta conclusão só é válida se o erro orbital dependente do tempo puder ser removido sem se remover simultaneamente uma porção excessiva do sinal meso-escalar. Nossos resultados sugerem que estudos de variabilidade mesoescalar não requerem dados dc órbita altimótrica extremamente precisos. Além disso, apesar deste trabalho só analisar dados do GEOSAT do oceano Atlântico Sul, acredita-se que tal resultado possa ser extrapolado para outras regiões do mar. Isto é devido às características espectrais do erro orbital dependente do tempo c à possibilidade de remoção deste erro sem remoção de grande parle do sinal meso-escalar oceânico. Estes resultados, contudo, não significam que não se deva tentar obter valores orbitais mais precisos. Pelo contrário, tal melhoramento pode ser capaz de levar à eliminação dc algumas das limitações atualmente existentes na utilização dc dados altimétricos. Por exemplo, estimativas dc órbita do GEOSAT mais precisas nos permitiriam estudar a variabilidade oceânica cm larga escala e, através de uma melhor compreensão do geoide, nos auxiliariam no estudo da circulação oceânica "meso e largoescalar" geral

Agulhas ring dynamics from TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter data

The transfer of warm water from the Indian Ocean into the South Atlantic subtropical gyre takes place in the form of rings and filaments formed when the Agulhas Current retroflects south of Africa between 15 and 25E. A survey of the rings formed from September 1992 until December 1995 in the Retroflection region was carried out using TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data. A two-layer model was used to estimate the upper layer thickness from the altimeter-derived sea-surface height anomaly data. An objective analysis scheme was used to construct a map of upper layer thickness every ten days. Seventeen rings and their trajectories were identified using these maps. The shedding of rings from the Agulhas Current was neither continuous nor periodic, and for long periods there is no formation of rings. Several rings remained in the region for more than a year and, at any given time, 2 to 6 rings coexisted in the region east of the Walvis Ridge. The results showed that the number of rings translating simultaneously in this region is larger during the first half of each year. The upper layer transport of the Agulhas Current in the Retroflection region was computed and a close association between high variations in transport and ring shedding was found. Rings translated WNW at translation speeds ranging from 5 to 16 km day−1 following formation. The values of available potential energy computed for the rings place them among the most energetic rings observed in the world oceans, with values of up to 70 × 1015 J. Transport computations indicate that each ring contributes in the average approximately 1 Sv of Agulhas Current waters to the Benguela Current

Simulating transport pathways of pelagic Sargassum from the Equatorial Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea

Since 2011, beach inundation of massive amounts of pelagic Sargassum algae has occurred around the Caribbean nations and islands. Previous studies have applied satellite ocean color to determine the origins of this phenomenon. These techniques, combined with complementary approaches, suggest that, rather than blooms originating in the Caribbean, they arrive from the Equatorial Atlantic. However, oceanographic context for these occurrences remains limited. Here, we present results from synthetic particle tracking experiments that characterize the interannual and seasonal dynamics of ocean currents and winds likely to influence the transport of Sargassum from the Equatorial Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea. Our findings suggest that Sargassum present in the western Equatorial Atlantic (west of longitude 50°W) has a high probability of entering the Caribbean Sea within a year’s time. Transport routes include the Guiana Current, North Brazil Current Rings, and the North Equatorial Current north of the North Brazil Current Retroflection. The amount of Sargassum following each route varies seasonally. This has important implications for the amount of time it takes Sargassum to reach the Caribbean Sea. By weighting particle transport predictions with Sargassum concentrations at release sites in the western Equatorial Atlantic, our simulations explain close to 90% of the annual variation in observed Sargassum abundance entering the Caribbean Sea. Additionally, results from our numerical experiments are in good agreement with observations of variability in the timing of Sargassum movement from the Equatorial Atlantic to the Caribbean, and observations of the spatial extent of Sargassum occurrence throughout the Caribbean. However, this work also highlights some areas of uncertainty that should be examined, in particular the effect of “windage” and other surface transport processes on the movement of Sargassum. Our results provide a useful launching point to predict Sargassum beaching events along the Caribbean islands well in advance of their occurrence and, more generally, to understand the movement ecology of a floating ecosystem that is essential habitat to numerous marine speciesNFP, GJG, LJG, EJ and JT acknowledge support from the NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. JT was also supported by NOAA/OceanWatch. CH and MW acknowledge support from NASA (NNX14AL98G, NNX16AR74G, and NNX17AE57G) and the William and Elsie Knight Endowed Fellowship. Funding for the development of HYCOM has been provided by the National Ocean Partnership Program and the Office of Naval ResearchS

Heat content of the Arabian Sea Mini Warm Pool is increasing

© The Author(s), 2015. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Atmospheric Science Letters 17 (2016): 39-42, doi:10.1002/asl.596.Sea surface temperature in the Arabian Sea Mini Warm Pool has been suggested to be one of the factors that affects the Indian summer monsoon. In this paper, we analyze the annual ocean heat content (OHC) of this region during 1993–2010, using in situ data, satellite observations, and a model simulation. We find that OHC increases significantly in the region during this period relative to the north Indian Ocean, and propose that this increase could have caused the decrease in Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall that occurred at the same time

Benchmarking of automatic quality control checks for ocean temperature profiles and recommendations for optimal sets

Millions of in situ ocean temperature profiles have been collected historically using various instrument types with varying sensor accuracy and then assembled into global databases. These are essential to our current understanding of the changing state of the oceans, sea level, Earth’s climate, marine ecosystems and fisheries, and for constraining model projections of future change that underpin mitigation and adaptation solutions. Profiles distributed shortly after collection are also widely used in operational applications such as real-time monitoring and forecasting of the ocean state and weather prediction. Before use in scientific or societal service applications, quality control (QC) procedures need to be applied to flag and ultimately remove erroneous data. Automatic QC (AQC) checks are vital to the timeliness of operational applications and for reducing the volume of dubious data which later require QC processing by a human for delayed mode applications. Despite the large suite of evolving AQC checks developed by institutions worldwide, the most effective set of AQC checks was not known. We have developed a framework to assess the performance of AQC checks, under the auspices of the International Quality Controlled Ocean Database (IQuOD) project. The IQuOD-AQC framework is an open-source collaborative software infrastructure built in Python (available from https://github.com/IQuOD). Sixty AQC checks have been implemented in this framework. Their performance was benchmarked against three reference datasets which contained a spectrum of instrument types and error modes flagged in their profiles. One of these (a subset of the Quality-controlled Ocean Temperature Archive (QuOTA) dataset that had been manually inspected for quality issues by its creators) was also used to identify optimal sets of AQC checks. Results suggest that the AQC checks are effective for most historical data, but less so in the case of data from Mechanical Bathythermographs (MBTs), and much less effective for Argo data. The optimal AQC sets will be applied to generate quality flags for the next release of the IQuOD dataset. This will further elevate the quality and historical value of millions of temperature profile data which have already been improved by IQuOD intelligent metadata and observational uncertainty information (https://doi.org/10.7289/v51r6nsf)

Autonomous and Lagrangian ocean observations for Atlantic tropical cyclone studies and forecasts

Author Posting. © The Oceanography Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of The Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Oceanography 30, no. 2 (2017): 92–103, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2017.227.The tropical Atlantic basin is one of seven global regions where tropical cyclones (TCs) commonly originate, intensify, and affect highly populated coastal areas. Under appropriate atmospheric conditions, TC intensification can be linked to upper-ocean properties. Errors in Atlantic TC intensification forecasts have not been significantly reduced during the last 25 years. The combined use of in situ and satellite observations, particularly of temperature and salinity ahead of TCs, has the potential to improve the representation of the ocean, more accurately initialize hurricane intensity forecast models, and identify areas where TCs may intensify. However, a sustained in situ ocean observing system in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea dedicated to measuring subsurface temperature, salinity, and density fields in support of TC intensity studies and forecasts has yet to be designed and implemented. Autonomous and Lagrangian platforms and sensors offer cost-effective opportunities to accomplish this objective. Here, we highlight recent efforts to use autonomous platforms and sensors, including surface drifters, profiling floats, underwater gliders, and dropsondes, to better understand air-sea processes during high-wind events, particularly those geared toward improving hurricane intensity forecasts. Real-time data availability is key for assimilation into numerical weather forecast models.The NOAA/AOML component of this work was originally funded by the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, also known as the Sandy Supplemental, and is currently funded through NOAA research grant NA14OAR4830103 by AOML and CARICOOS, as well as NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). The TEMPESTS component of this work is supported by NOAA through the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (NA13OAR4830233) with additional analysis support from the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship Program, Nortek Student Equipment Grant, and the Rutgers University Teledyne Webb Graduate Student Fellowship Program. The drifter component of this work is funded through NOAA grant NA15OAR4320071(11.432) in support of the Global Drifter Program

More than 50 years of successful continuous temperature section measurements by the global expendable bathythermograph network, its integrability, societal benefits, and future

The first eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBTs) were deployed in the 1960s in the North Atlantic Ocean. In 1967 XBTs were deployed in operational mode to provide a continuous record of temperature profile data along repeated transects, now known as the Global XBT Network. The current network is designed to monitor ocean circulation and boundary current variability, basin-wide and trans-basin ocean heat transport, and global and regional heat content. The ability of the XBT Network to systematically map the upper ocean thermal field in multiple basins with repeated trans-basin sections at eddy-resolving scales remains unmatched today and cannot be reproduced at present by any other observing platform. Some repeated XBT transects have now been continuously occupied for more than 30 years, providing an unprecedented long-term climate record of temperature, and geostrophic velocity profiles that are used to understand variability in ocean heat content (OHC), sea level change, and meridional ocean heat transport. Here, we present key scientific advances in understanding the changing ocean and climate system supported by XBT observations. Improvement in XBT data quality and its impact on computations, particularly of OHC, are presented. Technology development for probes, launchers, and transmission techniques are also discussed. Finally, we offer new perspectives for the future of the Global XBT Network

XBT Science: Assessment of Instrumental Biases and Errors

Expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data were the major component of the ocean temperature profile observations from the late 1960s through the early 2000s, and XBTs still continue to provide critical data to monitor surface and subsurface currents, meridional heat transport, and ocean heat content. Systematic errors have been identified in the XBT data, some of which originate from computing the depth in the profile using a theoretically and experimentally derived fall-rate equation (FRE). After in-depth studies of these biases and discussions held in several workshops dedicated to discussing XBT biases, the XBT science community met at the Fourth XBT Science Workshop and concluded that XBT biases consist of 1) errors in depth values due to the inadequacy of the probe motion description done by standard FRE and 2) independent pure temperature biases. The depth error and temperature bias are temperature dependent and may depend on the data acquisition and recording system. In addition, the depth bias also includes an offset term. Some biases affecting the XBT-derived temperature profiles vary with manufacturer/probe type and have been shown to be time dependent. Best practices for historical XBT data corrections, recommendations for future collection of metadata to accompany XBT data, impact of XBT biases on scientific applications, and challenges encountered are presented in this manuscript. Analysis of XBT data shows that, despite the existence of these biases, historical XBT data without bias corrections are still suitable for many scientific applications, and that bias-corrected data can be used for climate research

Ocean observations in support of studies and forecasts of tropical and extratropical cyclones

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Domingues, R., Kuwano-Yoshida, A., Chardon-Maldonado, P., Todd, R. E., Halliwell, G., Kim, H., Lin, I., Sato, K., Narazaki, T., Shay, L. K., Miles, T., Glenn, S., Zhang, J. A., Jayne, S. R., Centurioni, L., Le Henaff, M., Foltz, G. R., Bringas, F., Ali, M. M., DiMarco, S. F., Hosoda, S., Fukuoka, T., LaCour, B., Mehra, A., Sanabia, E. R., Gyakum, J. R., Dong, J., Knaff, J. A., & Goni, G. Ocean observations in support of studies and forecasts of tropical and extratropical cyclones. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 446, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00446.Over the past decade, measurements from the climate-oriented ocean observing system have been key to advancing the understanding of extreme weather events that originate and intensify over the ocean, such as tropical cyclones (TCs) and extratropical bomb cyclones (ECs). In order to foster further advancements to predict and better understand these extreme weather events, a need for a dedicated observing system component specifically to support studies and forecasts of TCs and ECs has been identified, but such a system has not yet been implemented. New technologies, pilot networks, targeted deployments of instruments, and state-of-the art coupled numerical models have enabled advances in research and forecast capabilities and illustrate a potential framework for future development. Here, applications and key results made possible by the different ocean observing efforts in support of studies and forecasts of TCs and ECs, as well as recent advances in observing technologies and strategies are reviewed. Then a vision and specific recommendations for the next decade are discussed.This study was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Numbers: JP17K19093, JP16K12591, and JP16H01846)

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes