Remote Estimation of Sea Surface Nitrate in the California Current System From Satellite Ocean Color Measurements

Author(s):  
Xiaolei Yu ◽  
Shuangling Chen ◽  
Fei Chai
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 1985-1998
Author(s):  
Anson Cheung ◽  
Baylor Fox-Kemper ◽  
Timothy Herbert

Abstract. Marine sediments have greatly improved our understanding of the climate system, but their interpretation often assumes that certain climate mechanisms operate consistently over all timescales of interest and that variability at one or a few sample sites is representative of an oceanographic province. In this study, we test these assumptions using modern observations in an idealized manner mimicking paleo-reconstruction to investigate whether sea surface temperature and productivity proxy records in the Southern California Current System can be used to reconstruct Ekman upwelling. The method uses extended empirical orthogonal function (EEOF) analysis of the covariation of alongshore wind stress, chlorophyll, and sea surface temperature as measured by satellites from 2002 to 2009. We find that EEOF1 does not reflect an Ekman upwelling pattern but instead much broader California Current processes. EEOF2 and 3 reflect upwelling patterns, but these patterns are timescale dependent and regional. Thus, the skill of using one site to reconstruct the large-scale dominant patterns is spatially dependent. Lastly, we show that using multiple sites and/or multiple variables generally improves field reconstruction. These results together suggest that caution is needed when attempting to extrapolate mechanisms that may be important on seasonal timescales (e.g., Ekman upwelling) to deeper time but also the advantage of having multiple proxy records.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (17) ◽  
pp. 1964 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo ◽  
Jose Gomez-Valdes ◽  
Marouan Bouali ◽  
Luis Miranda ◽  
Tom Van der Stocken ◽  
...  

Traditional ways of validating satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface salinity (SSS) products by comparing with buoy measurements, do not allow for evaluating the impact of mesoscale-to-submesoscale variability. We present the validation of remotely sensed SST and SSS data against the unmanned surface vehicle (USV)—called Saildrone—measurements from the 60 day 2018 Baja California campaign. More specifically, biases and root mean square differences (RMSDs) were calculated between USV-derived SST and SSS values, and six satellite-derived SST (MUR, OSTIA, CMC, K10, REMSS, and DMI) and three SSS (JPLSMAP, RSS40, RSS70) products. Biases between the USV SST and OSTIA/CMC/DMI were approximately zero, while MUR showed a bias of 0.3 °C. The OSTIA showed the smallest RMSD of 0.39 °C, while DMI had the largest RMSD of 0.5 °C. An RMSD of 0.4 °C between Saildrone SST and the satellite-derived products could be explained by the diurnal and sub-daily variability in USV SST, which currently cannot be resolved by remote sensing measurements. SSS showed fresh biases of 0.1 PSU for JPLSMAP and 0.2 PSU and 0.3 PSU for RMSS40 and RSS70 respectively. SST and SSS showed peaks in coherence at 100 km, most likely associated with the variability of the California Current System.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anson Cheung ◽  
Baylor Fox-Kemper ◽  
Timothy Herbert

Abstract. Marine sediments have greatly improved our understanding of the climate system, but their interpretation often assumes that certain climate mechanisms operate consistently over all timescales of interest and that variability at one or few sample sites is representative of an oceanographic province. In this study, we test these assumptions using modern observations in an idealized manner mimicking paleo-reconstruction to investigate whether sea surface temperature and productivity proxy records in the Southern California Current System can be used to reconstruct Ekman upwelling. The method uses Extended Empirical Orthogonal Function (EEOF) analysis of covariation of alongshore windstress, chlorophyll and sea surface temperature as measured by satellites from 2002 to 2009. We find that EEOF1 does not reflect an Ekman upwelling pattern, but instead much broader California Current processes. EEOF2 and 3 reflect upwelling patterns, but these patterns are timescale dependent and are regional. Thus, the skill of using one site to reconstruct the large scale dominant patterns is spatially dependent. Lastly, we show that using multiple sites and/or multiple variables generally improve field reconstruction. These results together suggest caution is needed when attempting to extrapolate mechanisms that may be important on seasonal time scales (e.g. Ekman upwelling) to deeper time, but also the advantage of having multiple proxy records.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dudley B. Chelton ◽  
Michael G. Schlax ◽  
Roger M. Samelson

Abstract Satellite observations of wind stress and sea surface temperature (SST) are analyzed to investigate ocean–atmosphere interaction in the California Current System (CCS). As in regions of strong SST fronts elsewhere in the World Ocean, SST in the CCS region is positively correlated with surface wind stress when SST fronts are strong, which occurs during the summertime in the CCS region. This ocean influence on the atmosphere is apparently due to SST modification of stability and mixing in the atmospheric boundary layer and is most clearly manifest in the derivative wind stress fields: wind stress curl and divergence are linearly related to, respectively, the crosswind and downwind components of the local SST gradient. The dynamic range of the Ekman upwelling velocities associated with the summertime SST-induced perturbations of the wind stress curl is larger than that of the upwelling velocities associated with the mean summertime wind stress curl. This suggests significant feedback effects on the ocean, which likely modify the SST distribution that perturbed the wind stress curl field. The atmosphere and ocean off the west coast of North America must therefore be considered a fully coupled system. It is shown that the observed summertime ocean–atmosphere interaction is poorly represented in the NOAA North American Mesoscale Model (formerly called the Eta Model). This is due, at least in part, to the poor resolution and accuracy of the SST boundary condition used in the model. The sparse distribution of meteorological observations available over the CCS for data assimilation may also contribute to the poor model performance.


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