Reconstructing Upper-Ocean Vertical Velocity Field from Sea Surface Height in the Presence of Unbalanced Motion Reconstructing Upper-Ocean Vertical Velocity Field from Sea Surface Height in the Presence of Unbalanced Motion uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractReconstructability of upper-ocean vertical velocity w and vorticity fields from high-resolution sea surface height (SSH) data is explored using the global 1/48 horizontal-resolution MITgcm output in the context of the forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. By decomposing w with an omega equation of the primitive equation system and by taking into account the measurement design of the SWOT mission, this study seeks to reconstruct the subinertial, balanced w and signals. By adopting the effective surface quasigeostrophic (eSQG) framework and applying to the Kuroshio Extension region of the North Pacific, we find that the target and reconstructed fields have a spatial correlation of ~0.7 below the mixed layer for w and 0.70.9 throughout the 1000-m upper ocean for in the error-free scenario. By taking the SWOT sampling and measurement errors into account, the spatial correlation is found to decrease to 0.40.6 below the mixed layer for w and 0.60.7 for , respectively. For both w and reconstruction, the degradation due to the SWOT errors is more significant in the surface layer and for smaller-scale signals. The impact of errors lessens with the increasing depth and lengthening horizontal scales.

published proceedings

  • Journal of Physical Oceanography

author list (cited authors)

  • Qiu, B. o., Chen, S., Klein, P., Torres, H., Wang, J., Fu, L., & Menemenlis, D.

complete list of authors

  • Qiu, Bo||Chen, Shuiming||Klein, Patrice||Torres, Hector||Wang, Jinbo||Fu, Lee-Lueng||Menemenlis, Dimitris