Science Meetings

Comparison Analysis Between Aquarius Sea Surface Salinity and World Ocean Database In Situ Analyzed Sea Surface Salinity

Reagan, J., Boyer, T., and Antonov, J. (13-Nov-13)

The Aquarius level-3 monthly sea surface salinity (SSS) fields are compared to the World Ocean Database (WOD) derived SSS fields from September 2011 through June 2013. The WOD-derived fields were created through an objective analysis scheme utilizing WOD profile data. Only profiles in the aforementioned time domain (09/2011 - 06/2013) that had a salinity observation less than 5.25m from the surface were used. With two different products offering a global view of SSS at monthly time scales, a comparison analysis was conducted to look at global and regional differences as well as differences in the annual cycle. The annual cycle comparison was analyzed through a Fourier decomposition of the first full calendar year of Aquarius (i.e. 2012). Both monthly products were also compared to the World Ocean Atlas 2013 monthly SSS climatology.

aqsci2013_reagan.pdf (1.5 MB)

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