The Surface Wind Influence on the Heat Fluxes Variability on the South Atlantic

Abstract

An adequate representation by models and reanalyzes is fundamental since the coverage by observational data on the oceans is still limited. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the influence of the wind near the surface on the heat fluxes during the southern winter and summer seasons. Datasets from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) and reanalyzes were used, in comparison to Objectively Analyzed Air - sea Fluxes (OAFlux) for the South Atlantic Ocean (SAO) during 1980-2005. Results point out an overestimation on the CMIP5 models and reanalyzes to reproduce the heat flux latent and sensible fluxes of SAO, mainly at medium and high latitudes. One possibility may be related the underestimating of surface wind speed, causing an impacts on the heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere. It was also possible to verify that the representation of heat flux, specific humidity, and air and ocean temperatures shows small biases (Mean Bias Error (MBE) to specific humidity (±5 kg.kg-1) and sensible heat flux (±10 W.m-2)). To the test Root Mean Square Error (RMSE)-observations Standard deviation Ratio (RSR), air temperature values are less than 1 °C, and for the wind with values greater than 2 m.s-1. There is less precision of CMIP5 models than OAFlux, resulting in low correlation values (between -0.3 and 0.3). On the other hand, the reanalyzes show small biases in air and ocean temperatures (between ±1 °C) and significant correlations (above 0.9) with the best performances for the NCEP and ERA5.