A new air-sea interaction gridded dataset from ICOADS with uncertainty estimates.
A new air-sea interaction gridded dataset from ICOADS with uncertainty estimates.
The exchange, or flux, of heat between the oceans and atmosphere is an important driver of the global oceanic and atmospheric circulations but remains poorly quantified. Direct measurement of heat flux remains a research activity and so global heat flux datasets are generated using observations of winds, air and sea temperatures and humidity as input to heat flux parameterisations known as "bulk formulae". We remain dependent on the observations from merchant ships in the Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) program which are archived in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS): measurements from buoys are sparse and satellites cannot accurately recover all the variables required for heat flux calculation.
Careful analysis of VOS data is necessary to produce gridded datasets of meteorological variables and fluxes with the accuracy required for climate research. Past in situ flux datasets have averaged observations on monthly timescales in order to reduce random uncertainty. It has therefore been hard to understand the contributions to observed variability from measurement errors, poor sampling or natural variability. The new dataset, which covers the period 1973 to 2006, avoids this problem by first constructing daily mean fields using optimal interpolation. This allows each component of variability to be handled correctly and, for the first time, uncertainty estimates to be produced. New bias adjustments have also been developed and applied. The new dataset is described and a preliminary comparison with flux estimates from moored buoys, satellites and atmospheric reanalysis models is presented.
air-sea interaction, flux, ocean, global, dataset, sensible heat, latent heat, shortwave radiation, longwave radiation, ICOADS, ship observations, bulk formulae, buoy intercomparison
645-656
Berry, David I.
55ffc590-f459-49c8-aecf-842d65aeb0fb
Kent, Elizabeth C.
ea23f6f0-ccf6-4702-a5c9-184e9c5d4427
May 2009
Berry, David I.
55ffc590-f459-49c8-aecf-842d65aeb0fb
Kent, Elizabeth C.
ea23f6f0-ccf6-4702-a5c9-184e9c5d4427
Berry, David I. and Kent, Elizabeth C.
(2009)
A new air-sea interaction gridded dataset from ICOADS with uncertainty estimates.
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 90 (5), .
(doi:10.1175/2008BAMS2639.1).
Abstract
The exchange, or flux, of heat between the oceans and atmosphere is an important driver of the global oceanic and atmospheric circulations but remains poorly quantified. Direct measurement of heat flux remains a research activity and so global heat flux datasets are generated using observations of winds, air and sea temperatures and humidity as input to heat flux parameterisations known as "bulk formulae". We remain dependent on the observations from merchant ships in the Voluntary Observing Ships (VOS) program which are archived in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Dataset (ICOADS): measurements from buoys are sparse and satellites cannot accurately recover all the variables required for heat flux calculation.
Careful analysis of VOS data is necessary to produce gridded datasets of meteorological variables and fluxes with the accuracy required for climate research. Past in situ flux datasets have averaged observations on monthly timescales in order to reduce random uncertainty. It has therefore been hard to understand the contributions to observed variability from measurement errors, poor sampling or natural variability. The new dataset, which covers the period 1973 to 2006, avoids this problem by first constructing daily mean fields using optimal interpolation. This allows each component of variability to be handled correctly and, for the first time, uncertainty estimates to be produced. New bias adjustments have also been developed and applied. The new dataset is described and a preliminary comparison with flux estimates from moored buoys, satellites and atmospheric reanalysis models is presented.
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More information
Submitted date: 1 August 2008
Published date: May 2009
Keywords:
air-sea interaction, flux, ocean, global, dataset, sensible heat, latent heat, shortwave radiation, longwave radiation, ICOADS, ship observations, bulk formulae, buoy intercomparison
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 55576
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/55576
ISSN: 0003-0007
PURE UUID: a8c77db9-e16d-4e8c-b4ea-2d2ae0236981
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Date deposited: 05 Aug 2008
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 10:56
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Contributors
Author:
David I. Berry
Author:
Elizabeth C. Kent
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