Comparing the steric height in the northern Atlantic with satellite altimetry

Ivchenko, V.O., Danilov, S.D., Sidorenko, D.V., Schroter, J., Wenzel, M. and Aleynik, D.L. (2007) Comparing the steric height in the northern Atlantic with satellite altimetry. Ocean Science, 3 (4), 485-490.

Abstract

Anomalies of dynamic height derived from an
analysis of Argo profiling buoys data are analysed to assess
the relative roles of contributions from temperature and salinity
over the North Atlantic for the period of 1999–2004. They
are compared with dynamic topography anomalies based on
TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason altimetry. It is shown that the
halosteric contribution to the anomalies of dynamic height
is comparable in magnitude to the thermosteric one over
the period analyzed. Taking both salinity and temperature
into account improves the agreement between zonally averaged
trends in the satellite dynamic topography and dynamic
height increasing the correlation between them to 0.73 from
0.63 when only temperature variability is taken into account.
The implication of this result is that the salinity contribution
cannot be neglected in the North Atlantic and that one cannot
rely on estimating the thermosteric part by anomalies in the
sea surface dynamic topography derived from the satellite altimetry.

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