Identification

Title

Bayesian modelling and ensemble reconstruction of mid-scale spatial variability in North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures for 1850-2008

Abstract

Existing historical records of sea-surface temperature extending back to the mid-1800s are a valuable source of information about climate variability on interannual and decadal time-scales. However, the temporal and spatial irregularity of these data make them difficult to use in climate research, where gridded and complete data fields are expected for both statistical analysis and forcing numerical models. Infilling methods based on constraining the solution to the linear space spanned by the leading eigenvectors of the global-scale covariance, otherwise known as reduced-space methods, have proven very successful in creating gridded estimates of sea-surface temperature. These methods are especially useful for infilling the vast regions of unobserved ocean typical of the earliest segments of the data record. Regional variability, on the other hand, is not well represented by these methods, especially in data-poor regions. Here we present a method for augmenting the established large-scale reconstruction methods with a statistical model of the mid-scale variability. Using high quality sea-surface temperature data from the last 30 years including satellite-derived records, we specify a spatially non-stationary, anisotropic covariance model for the mid-scale sea-surface temperature variability. With the parameters of the covariance model estimated from the modern record, historical observations are used for conditioning the posterior distribution. Specifically, we form the expected value and correlated uncertainty of the mid-scales as well as generating samples from the posterior. While this work focuses on a limited domain in the midlatitude North Atlantic Ocean, the method employed here can be extended to global reconstructions.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7xw4mcc

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

2012-01-01T00:00:00Z

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