A four-year eddy-permitting assimilation of sea-surface temperature and altimetric data in the South Atlantic Ocean
Penduff, T.; Brasseur, P.; Testut, C.E.manuel
Journal of: 5-33
2002
ISSN/ISBN: 2059-4763 DOI: 10.1357/002224002321505147
Accession: 009749601
The sequential assimilation of sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea-surface height (SSH) data into an eddy-permitting model of the South Atlantic Ocean was conducted and validated. The data were assimilated with a reduced order sequential filter every 10 days over 4 years in a 1/3-degree resolution South Atlantic primitive equation model. Over the 4 years of assimilation, the forecast-data RMS misfit was decreased by 55 percent on SSH, by 40 percent on SST, by about 20 percent on temperature in the upper 700 m with regard to independent, synoptic XBT data, and as deep as 3,500 m on the time-averaged temperature distribution compared to a recent climatology. These statistical results compared favorably to a more original oceanographic investigation, but could be further improved by assimilating in-situ data below sharp thermoclines that tend to decorrelate subsurface dynamics from the observed surface.