Éditeur(s) : Amer Geophysical Union
Résumé : Sea surface salinity (SSS) measured from space by the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission is validated in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. 39 transects of ships of opportunity equipped with thermosalinographs (TSG) crossed that region from 2010 to 2012, providing a large database of ground truth SSS. SMOS SSS is also compared to Aquarius SSS. Large seasonal biases remain in SMOS and Aquarius SSS. In order to look at the capability of satellite SSS to monitor spatial variability, especially at scales less than 300 km (not monitored with the Argo network), we first apply a monthly bias correction derived from satellite SSS and In Situ Analysis System (ISAS) SSS differences averaged over the studied region. Ship SSS averaged over 25 km is compared with satellite and ISAS SSS. Similar statistics are obtained for SMOS, Aquarius and ISAS products (root mean square error of about 0.15 and global correlation coefficient r of about 0.92). However, in the above statistics, SSS varies due to both large scale and mesoscale (here, for scales around 100 km) variability. In order to focus on mesoscale variability, we consider SSS anomalies with respect to a monthly climatology. SMOS SSS and Aquarius SSS anomalies are more significantly correlated (r > 0.5) to TSG SSS anomaly than ISAS. We show the effective gain of resolution and coverage provided by the satellite products over the interpolated in situ data. We also show the advantage of SMOS (r=0.57) over Aquarius (r=0.52) to reproduce SSS mesoscale features.
Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0027) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2014-12 , Vol. 119 , N. 12 , P. 8878-8896

Droits : 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00210/32150/34082.pdf
DOI:10.1002/2013JC009610
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00210/32150/

Éditeur(s) : Springer
Résumé : While it is well known that the ocean is one of the most important component of the climate system, with a heat capacity 1,100 times greater than the atmosphere, the ocean is also the primary reservoir for freshwater transport to the atmosphere and largest component of the global water cycle. Two new satellite sensors, the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the NASA Aquarius SAC-D missions, are now providing the first space-borne measurements of the sea surface salinity (SSS). In this paper, we present examples demonstrating how SMOS-derived SSS data are being used to better characterize key land–ocean and atmosphere–ocean interaction processes that occur within the marine hydrological cycle. In particular, SMOS with its ocean mapping capability provides observations across the world’s largest tropical ocean fresh pool regions, and we discuss from intraseasonal to interannual precipitation impacts as well as large-scale river runoff from the Amazon–Orinoco and Congo rivers and its offshore advection. Synergistic multi-satellite analyses of these new surface salinity data sets combined with sea surface temperature, dynamical height and currents from altimetry, surface wind, ocean color, rainfall estimates, and in situ observations are shown to yield new freshwater budget insight. Finally, SSS observations from the SMOS and Aquarius/SAC-D sensors are combined to examine the response of the upper ocean to tropical cyclone passage including the potential role that a freshwater-induced upper ocean barrier layer may play in modulating surface cooling and enthalpy flux in tropical cyclone track regions.
Surveys In Geophysics (0169-3298) (Springer), 2014-05 , Vol. 35 , N. 3 , P. 681-722

Droits : Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00152/26334/24430.pdf
DOI:10.1007/s10712-013-9244-0
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00152/26334/