scholarly journals Arctic sea surface height maps from multi-altimeter combination

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Prandi ◽  
Jean-Christophe Poisson ◽  
Yannice Faugère ◽  
Amandine Guillot ◽  
Gérald Dibarboure

Abstract. We present a new Arctic sea level anomaly dataset, based on the combination of three altimeter missions using an optimal interpolation scheme. Measurements from SARAL/AltiKa, CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3A are blended together providing an unprecedented resolution for this type of products. The final gridded fields cover all latitudes north of 50° N, on a 25 km EASE2 grid, with one grid every three days over three years from July 2016 to April 2019. We use the Adaptive retracker to process both open ocean and lead echoes on SARAL/AltiKa thus removing the need to estimate a bias between open ocean an ice covered areas. SARAL/AltiKa also provides the baseline for the cross-calibation of CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3A data. When compared to independent data, the combined product exhibits a much better performance than previously available datasets based on the analysis of a single mission.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 5469-5482
Author(s):  
Pierre Prandi ◽  
Jean-Christophe Poisson ◽  
Yannice Faugère ◽  
Amandine Guillot ◽  
Gérald Dibarboure

Abstract. We present a new Arctic sea level anomaly dataset based on the combination of three altimeter missions using an optimal interpolation scheme. Measurements from SARAL/AltiKa, CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3A are blended together, providing an unprecedented resolution for this type of product. Such high-resolution products are necessary to tackle some contemporaneous science questions in the basin. We use the adaptive retracker to process both open ocean and lead echoes on SARAL/AltiKa, thus removing the need to estimate a bias between open ocean and ice-covered areas. The usual processing approach, involving an empirical retracking algorithm on specular echoes, is applied on CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mode echoes. SARAL/AltiKa also provides the baseline for the cross-calibration of CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3A data. The final gridded fields cover all latitudes north of 50∘ N, on a 25 km EASE2 grid, with one grid every 3 d over 3 years from July 2016 to April 2019. When compared to tide gauge measurements available in the Arctic Ocean, the combined product exhibits a much better performance than mono-mission datasets with a mean correlation of 0.78 and a mean root-mean-square deviation (RMSd) of 5 cm. The effective temporal resolution of the combined product is 3 times better than a single mission analysis. This dataset can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.24400/527896/a01-2020.001 (Prandi, 2020).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Lima ◽  
Stefania Angela Ciliberti ◽  
Ali Aydogdu ◽  
Romain Escudier ◽  
Simona Masina ◽  
...  

<p>Ocean reanalyses are becoming increasingly important to reconstruct and provide an overview of the ocean state from the past to the present-day. These products require advanced scientific methods and techniques to produce a more accurate ocean representation. In the scope of the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS), a new Black Sea (BS) reanalysis, BS-REA (BSE3R1 system), has been produced by using an advanced variational data assimilation method to combine the best available observations with a state-of-the-art ocean general circulation model. The hydrodynamical model is based on Nucleus for European Modeling of the Ocean (NEMO, v3.6), implemented for the BS domain with horizontal resolution of 1/27° x 1/36°, and 31 unevenly distributed vertical levels. NEMO is forced by atmospheric surface fluxes computed via bulk formulation and forced by ECMWF ERA5 atmospheric reanalysis product. At the surface, the model temperature is relaxed to daily objective analysis fields of sea surface temperature from CMEMS SST TAC. The exchange with Mediterranean Sea is simulated through relaxation of the temperature and salinity near Bosporus toward a monthly climatology computed from a high-resolution multi-year simulation, and the barotropic Bosporus Strait transport is corrected to balance the variations of the freshwater flux and the sea surface height measured by multi-satellite altimetry observations. A 3D-Var ocean data assimilation scheme (OceanVar) is used to assimilate sea level anomaly along-track observations from CMEMS SL TAC and available in situ vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from both SeaDataNet and CMEMS INS TAC products. Comparisons against the previous Black Sea reanalysis (BSE2R2 system) show important improvements for temperature and salinity, such that errors have significantly decreased (about 50%). Temperature fields present a continuous warming in the layer between 25-150 m, within which there is the presence of the Black Sea Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL). SST exhibits a positive bias and relatively higher root mean square error (RMSE) values are present in the summer season. Spatial maps of sea level anomaly reveal the largest RMSE close to the shelf areas, which are related to the mesoscale activity along the Rim current. The BS-REA catalogue includes daily and monthly means for 3D temperature, salinity, and currents and 2D sea surface height, bottom temperature, mixed layer fields, from Jan 1993 to Dec 2019.  The BSE3R1 system has produced very accurate estimates which makes it very suitable for assessing more realistic climate trends and indicators for important ocean properties.</p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 139 (3) ◽  
pp. 738-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Storto ◽  
Srdjan Dobricic ◽  
Simona Masina ◽  
Pierluigi Di Pietro

Abstract A global ocean three-dimensional variational data assimilation system was developed with the aim of assimilating along-track sea level anomaly observations, along with in situ observations from bathythermographs and conventional sea stations. All the available altimetric data within the period October 1992–January 2006 were used in this study. The sea level corrections were covariated with vertical profiles of temperature and salinity according to the bivariate definition of the background-error vertical covariances. Sea level anomaly observational error variance was carefully defined as a sum of instrumental, representativeness, observation operator, and mean dynamic topography error variances. The mean dynamic topography was computed from the model long-term mean sea surface height and adjusted through an optimal interpolation scheme to account for observation minus first-guess biases. Results show that the assimilation of sea level anomaly observations improves the model sea surface height skill scores as well as the subsurface temperature and salinity fields. Furthermore, the estimate of the tropical and subtropical surface circulation is clearly improved after assimilating altimetric data. Nonnegligible impacts of the mean dynamic topography used have also been found: compared to a gravimeter-based mean dynamic topography the use of the mean dynamic topography discussed in this paper improves both the consistency with sea level anomaly observations and the verification skill scores of temperature and salinity in the tropical regions. Furthermore, the use of a mean dynamic topography computed from the model long-term sea surface height mean without observation adjustments results in worsened verification skill scores and highlights the benefits of the current approach for deriving the mean dynamic topography.


GEOMATIKA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Dina Anggreni Sarsito ◽  
Dudy Darmawan Wijaya ◽  
Nur Fajar Trihantoro ◽  
Muhammad Syahrullah Fathulhuda ◽  
Dhota Pradipta

<p>Indonesia is an archipelago state lies between Indian and Pacific Oceans at the South East Asia region. Its unique geomorphological and geographical setting affect variabilities of instantaneous sea surface height (ISSH) concering to one of the sea reference surface i.e mean sea surface height (MSSH). The differences between both heights, known as sea level anomaly (SLA), can be recognized as one of the parameter that describes the dynamic phenomena of the ocean. We investigated the Spatiotemporal characteristics of long-term SLA in this research based on 30 years of sea-level data derived from the multi-mission of satellite Altimetry (Topex/Poseidon, Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3). The Spatiotemporal of SLA characteristics in Indonesian waters indicate substantial variations due to the influences of geographical location, bathymetric depth, and seasonal patterns. The SLA rate in the Indonesian region provides values that vary between 3.4 mm/yr to 5.3 mm/yr that higher than 3.2 mm/yr global SLA rate. The impact caused by the phenomenon needs to be taken into account given the vulnerability and disaster that could endanger the islands and coastal area in Indonesia. <strong></strong></p>


2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 1739-1750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Cabanes ◽  
Thierry Huck ◽  
Alain Colin de Verdière

Abstract Interannual sea surface height variations in the Atlantic Ocean are examined from 10 years of high-precision altimeter data in light of simple mechanisms that describe the ocean response to atmospheric forcing: 1) local steric changes due to surface buoyancy forcing and a local response to wind stress via Ekman pumping and 2) baroclinic and barotropic oceanic adjustment via propagating Rossby waves and quasi-steady Sverdrup balance, respectively. The relevance of these simple mechanisms in explaining interannual sea level variability in the whole Atlantic Ocean is investigated. It is shown that, in various regions, a large part of the interannual sea level variability is related to local response to heat flux changes (more than 50% in the eastern North Atlantic). Except in a few places, a local response to wind stress forcing is less successful in explaining sea surface height observations. In this case, it is necessary to consider large-scale oceanic adjustments: the first baroclinic mode forced by wind stress explains about 70% of interannual sea level variations in the latitude band 18°–20°N. A quasi-steady barotropic Sverdrup response is observed between 40° and 50°N.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhimin Ma ◽  
Guoqi Han

Utilizing a high-resolution (2-km) coastal ocean model output off Eastern Newfoundland, this paper explores the potential for reconstructing the sea surface height (SSH) and the surface inshore Labrador Current from high-resolution SSH data of the upcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission. The model results are evaluated against in-situ data from tide gauges and nadir altimetry for the period from June to October, 2010. The hourly model SSH output is used as true SSH and sampled along-swath with expected measurement errors by using a SWOT simulator, which produces SWOT-like data. We reconstruct half-day SSH fields from the SWOT-like data using optimal interpolation and average them into weekly fields. The average normalized root-mean-square difference between the weekly reconstructed SSH field and the model SSH filed is 0.07 for the inshore Labrador Current. Between the geostrophic surface current derived from the reconstructed SSH field and the model surface current, the average normalized root-mean-square difference is 0.26 for the inshore Labrador Current. For the surface unit-depth transport of the inshore Labrador Current, the normalized root-mean-square differences are 0.32–0.38 between the reconstructed current and the model current.


2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Faiz Pa'suya ◽  
Kamaludin Mohd Omar ◽  
Benny N. Peter ◽  
Ami Hassan Md Din ◽  
Mohd Fadzil Mohd Akhir

The sea surface circulation pattern over the coast of Peninsula Malaysia's East Coast during Northeast Monsoon (NE) and Southwest Monsoon (SW) are derived using the seasonally averaged sea level anomaly (SLA) data from altimetric data and 1992-2002 Mean Dynamic Ocean Topography. This altimetric data has been derived from multi-mission satellite altimeter TOPEX, ERS-1, ERS-2, JASON-1, and ENVISAT for the period of nineteen years (1993 to 2011) using the Radar Altimeter Database System (RADS). The estimated sea level anomaly (SLA) have shown similarity in the pattern of sea level variations observed by four tide gauges. Overall, the sea surface circulations during the NE and SW monsoons shows opposite patterns, northward and southward respectively. During the SW monsoon, an anti-cyclonic circulation has been detected around the Terengganu coastal area centred at (about 5.5° N 103.5° E) and nearly consistent with previous study using numerical modelling. The estimated geostrophic current field from the altimeter is consistent with the trajectories of Argos-tracked Drifting Buoys provided by the Marine Environmental Data Services (MEDS) in Canada.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 2421-2435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward D. Zaron ◽  
Richard D. Ray

AbstractSea level anomaly (SLA) maps are routinely produced by objective analysis of data from the constellation of satellite altimeter missions in operation since 1992. Beginning in 2014, changes in the Data Unification and Altimeter Combination System (DUACS) used to create the SLA maps resulted in improved spatial resolution of mesoscale variability, but it also increased the levels of aliased tidal variability compared to the methodology employed prior to 2014. The present work investigates the magnitude and spatial distribution of these tidal signals, which are typically smaller than 1 cm in the open ocean but can reach tens of centimeters in the coastal ocean. In the open ocean, the signals are caused by a combination of phase-locked and phase-variable baroclinic tides. In the coastal ocean, the signals are a combination of aliased high-frequency nontidal variability and aliased variability caused by erroneous tidal corrections applied to the along-track altimetry prior to objective analysis. Several low-pass and bandpass filters are implemented to reduce the tidal signals in the mapped SLA, and independent tide gauge data are used to provide an objective assessment of the performance of the filters. The filter that attenuates both the small-scale (less than 200 km) and the high-frequency (period shorter than 108 days) components of SLA removes aliased baroclinic tidal variability and improves the accuracy of tidal analysis in the open ocean while also performing acceptably in the coastal ocean.


2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2391-2406 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. D. Hamlington ◽  
R. R. Leben ◽  
O. A. Godin ◽  
J. F. Legeais ◽  
E. Gica ◽  
...  

Abstract. Tsunamis are difficult to detect and measure in the open ocean because the wave amplitude is much smaller than it is closer to shore. An effective early warning system, however, must be able to observe an impending tsunami threat far away from the shore in order to provide the necessary lead-time for coastal inhabitants to find safety. Given the expansiveness of the ocean, sensors capable of detecting the tsunami must also have very broad areal coverage. The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman tsunami was definitively detected in the open ocean from both sea surface height and sea surface roughness measurements provided by satellite altimeters. This tsunami, however, was exceptionally strong and questions remain about the ability to use such measurements for the detection of weaker tsunamis. Here we study the 2010 Chilean tsunami and demonstrate the ability to detect the tsunami in the open ocean. Specifically, we analyze the utility of filtering in extracting the tsunami signal from sea surface height measurements, and, through the use of statistical analyses of satellite altimeter observations, we demonstrate that the 2010 Chilean tsunami induced distinct and detectable changes in sea surface roughness. While satellite altimeters do not provide the temporal and spatial coverage necessary to form the basis of an effective early warning system, tsunami-induced changes in sea surface roughness can be detected using orbiting microwave radars and radiometers, which have a broad surface coverage across the satellite ground track.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Nascimento Lima ◽  
Clemente Augusto Souza Tanajura

ABSTRACT. In this study, assimilation of Jason-1 and Jason-2 along-track sea level anomaly (SLA) data was conducted in a region of the tropical and South Atlantic (7◦N-36◦S, 20◦W up to the Brazilian coast) using an optimal interpolation method and the HYCOM (Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model). Four 24 h-forecast experiments were performed daily from January 1 until March 31, 2011 considering different SLA assimilation data windows (1 day and 2 days) and different coefficients in the parameterization of the SLA covariance matrix model. The model horizontal resolution was 1/12◦ and the number of vertical layers was 21. The SLA analyses added to the mean sea surface height were projected to the subsurface with the Cooper & Haines (1996) scheme. The results showed that the experiment with 2-day window of along-track data and with specific parameterizations of the model SLA covariance error for sub-regions of the METAREA V was the most accurate. It completely reconstructed the model sea surface height and important improvements in the circulation were produced. For instance, there was a substantial improvement in the representation of the Brazil Current and North Brazil Undercurrent. However, since no assimilation of vertical profiles of temperature and salinity and of sea surface temperature was performed, the methodology employed here should be considered only as a step towards a high quality analysis for operational forecasting systems.   Keywords: data assimilation, optimal interpolation, Cooper & Haines scheme, altimetry data.   RESUMO. Neste estudo, a assimilação de dados de anomalia da altura da superfície do mar (AASM) ao longo da trilha dos satélites Jason-1 e Jason-2 foi conduzida em uma região do Atlântico tropical e Sul (7◦N-36◦S, 20◦W até a costa do Brasil) com o método de interpolação ótima e o modelo oceânico HYCOM (Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model). Foram realizados quatro experimentos de previsão de 24 h entre 1 de janeiro e 31 de março de 2011, considerando diferentes janelas de assimilação de AASM (1 dia e 2 dias) e diferentes coeficientes na parametrização da matriz de covariância dos erros de AASM do modelo. A resolução horizontal empregada no HYCOM foi 1/12◦ para 21 camadas verticais. As correções de altura da superfície do mar devido à assimilação de AASM foram projetadas abaixo da camada de mistura através da técnica de Cooper & Haines (1996). Os resultados mostraram que o experimento com assimilação de dados ao longo da trilha dos satélites com a janela de 2 dias e com parametrizações da matriz de covariância específicas para sub-regiões da METAREA V foi o mais acurado. Ele reconstruiu completamente a altura da superfície do mar e também proporcionou melhorias na circulação oceânica reproduzida pelo modelo. Por exemplo, houve substancial melhoria da representação nos campos da Corrente do Brasil e Subcorrente Norte do Brasil. Entretanto, tendo em vista que não foi realizada a assimilação de perfis verticais de temperatura e de salinidade e da temperatura da superfície do mar, a metodologia apresentada deve ser considerada apenas como um passo na conquista de uma análise oceânica e de um sistema previsor de qualidade para fins operacionais.   Palavras-chave: assimilação de dados, interpolação ótima, técnica de Cooper & Haines, dados de altimetria.


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