The Ocean Surface Topography Constellation: The Next 15 Years in Satellite Altimetry

Wilson, Stan; Parisot, F.; Escudier, Philippe; Fellous, Jean-Louis; Benvéniste, Jérôme; Bonekamp, Hans; Drinkwater, Mark R.; Fu, L.; Jacobs, Gregg A.; Lin, Mingsen

doi:10.5270/oceanobs09.cwp.92

Cited by 24 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Community white papers for OceanObs09 that are especially relevant to these two topics include those discussing surface circulation, boundary current arrays, Argo (Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography) profiling, the SWOT (Surface Water Ocean Topography) satellite mission, oxygen profiling on Argo, EM (ElectroMagnetic) velocity profiling on Argo, the satellite surface salinity mission, and the OceanSITES (OCEAN Sustained Interdisciplinary Time series Environment observation System) program [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Ventilation and Circulation

Talley¹,

Fine²,

Lumpkin³

et al. 2010

Proceedings of OceanObs'09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society

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There has been tremendous progress in the last decade in observing surface circulation and its variability, mainly resulting from the longer records and higher quality of various satellite and surface drifter data sets, along with new analysis methods. Observation of upper ocean subsurface circulation is necessarily lagging behind because in situ sampling cannot match the satellite coverage; progress is being made using Argo (Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography) profiling, subsurface velocities (moorings and floats), and data assimilation. Western and eastern boundary regions have very different spatial and temporal sampling requirements from the interior circulation and from each other; few are fully instrumented for longterm monitoring, but these are producing climateappropriate records of velocity, temperature and transport. Coastal circulation is increasingly monitored by high frequency radars.Ventilation and upwelling processes connect the surface layer and underlying interior. Locally these processes are complex combinations of air-sea fluxes, convection, stratification/restratification, and frontal processes, down to the submesoscale (1 to 10 km). Ongoing research ship observations provide quantitative information on formation rates and residence times, and compelling evidence of decadal ventilation changes. The Argo profiler network is beginning to produce time series that show interannual variations in major water masses.Combination of improving air-sea flux products and surface density distributions is yielding ever-improving quantitative estimates of formation rates and variability. Progress in understanding the many processes involved in ventilation has been made through regional experiments and high-resolution modeling of mixed layer and frontal processes.Recommendations for the next decade include: maintenance of relevant existing observing systems, continued improvement of air-sea flux products, continued improvement of synthesis methods, implementation of the satellite SWOT (Surface Water Ocean Topography) and surface salinity missions, expansion of autonomous subsurface profiling to include oxygen and turbulence profiling, and implementation of local observing systems in strategic locations in boundary currents and dense water formation sites.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surface Ventilation and Circulation

Talley¹,

Fine²,

Lumpkin³

et al. 2010

Proceedings of OceanObs'09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society

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“…Mike Bell (6) , Mark Bourassa (7) , Pierre Brasse ur(8), Lars-Anders Breivik (9) , James Carton(10), James Cummings (11) (14) MERCATOR OCEAN, [8][9][10] Rue Hermes, 31520 Ramonville, St Agne, France, nferry@mercator-ocean.fr (15) (23) Ocean Observing and Climate, National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, SO14 3ZH, UK,eck@noc.soton.ac.uk (24) In environmental data assimilation, models are used to synthesize diverse in situ and satellite data streams into a single product (an analysis or state estimate), combining the various observations with the model, each according to its strengths. Assimilation systems are particularly important for the ocean where subsurface observations, even today, are sparse and intermittent compared with the scales needed to represent ocean variability and where satellites only sense the surface.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most commonly used are seasurface height (SSH) anomalies from altimeters (e.g., TOPEX/Poseidon and JASON-1, -2 [15]), in situ temperature (T) profiles from XBTs/CTDs [16,17] , the global tropical moored buoy array [18], and Argo [19] and in situ salinity (S) profiles from Argo. Sea surface temperature (SST) estimates (e.g., [20], [21]) are either assimilated directly or used as a surface boundary condition.…”

Section: The Current Global Synthesis Effortsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesis and Assimilation Systems - Essential Adjuncts to the Global Ocean Observing System

Rienecker

Awaji

Balmaseda

et al. 2010

Proceedings of OceanObs'09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society

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“…They note that "the quintessential, most immediate application of coastal altimetry is to look at the coastal sea level, including short term sea level variations (leading to monitoring of surges)". Several parameters derived from altimetry can contribute to forecasts of tropical cyclone paths, including wind speed and wave height, meso-scale circulation and the tropical cyclone heat potential, as well as improvement of tide knowledge by direct assimilation of the data into hydrodynamic models [19].…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%