Identification

Title

A construction of pseudo salinity profiles for the global ocean: Method and evaluation

Abstract

This study demonstrates a reconstruction of salinity profiles for the global ocean for the period 1993 - 2008. All available temperature-salinity (T-S) profiles from the Global Temperature-Salinity Profile Program and Argo data are divided into two subsets; one half is used for producing the vertical coupled T-S empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes, and the other half is used for the verification. We employed a weighted least-squares method that minimizes the misfits between the predetermined EOF structures and independent observed temperature and altimetry data. Verification shows that the South Indian and North Atlantic oceans maintain good correlations to 900 m depth between the observed and reconstructed salinity with altimetry data. Meanwhile, the Pacific and Antarctic oceans below 500 m shows significant negative correlations which are associated with the relationship between steric height and salinity variability in these basins. In order to guarantee general agreement with observations for all ocean depths, we calculate a regional correlation index considering the impact of altimetry data and employ it for our final products. Except for the surface ocean, the pseudo salinity profiles show general improvements compared to the existing climatology and the reanalysis outputs from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory's ensemble coupled data assimilation system. Near the surface layer, reanalysis outputs show a relatively high performance due to the coupling between the atmosphere and ocean. An assimilation system produces reliable surface flux variability not accounted for the construction of the global pseudo salinity profiles. These results encourage the application of the global pseudo salinity profiles into an assimilation system for the 20th century when the observed salinity data are sparse.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7mg7q0w

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2011-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact