Éditeur(s) : Amer Geophysical Union
Résumé : Large rivers are key hydrologic components in oceanography, particularly regarding air-sea and land-sea exchanges and biogeochemistry. We enter now in a new era of Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) observing system from Space with the recent launches of the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and the NASA Aquarius/Sac-D missions. With these new sensors, we are now in an excellent position to revisit SSS and ocean color investigations in the tropical northwest Atlantic using multi-year remote sensing time series and concurrent in situ observations. The Amazon is the world's largest river in terms of discharge. In its plume, SSS and upper water column optical properties such as the absorption coefficient of colored detrital matter (acdm) are strongly negatively correlated (<-0.7). Local quasi-linear relationships between SSS and acdm are derived for these plume waters over the period of 2010-2013 using new spaceborne SSS and ocean color measurements. Results allow unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution of this coupling. These relationships are then used to estimate SSS in the Amazon plume based on ocean color satellite data. This new product is validated against SMOS and in situ data and compared with previously developed SSS retrieval models. We demonstrate the potential to estimate tropical Atlantic SSS for the extended period from 1998 to 2010, prior to spaceborne SSS data collection.
Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0227) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2015-05 , Vol. 120 , N. 5 , P. 3177-3192

Droits : 2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00255/36610/35742.pdf
DOI:10.1002/2014JC010109
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00255/36610/

Éditeur(s) : Amer Geophysical Union
Résumé : An analysis is presented for the spatial and intensity distributions of North Atlantic extreme atmospheric events crossing the buoyant Amazon-Orinoco freshwater plume. The sea surface cooling amplitude in the wake of an ensemble of storm tracks traveling in that region is estimated from satellite products for the period 1998-2012. For the most intense storms, cooling is systematically reduced by approximate to 50% over the plume area compared to surroundings open-ocean waters. Historical salinity and temperature observations from in situ profiles indicate that salt-driven vertical stratification, enhanced oceanic heat content, and barrier-layer presence within the plume waters are likely key oceanic factors to explain these results. Satellite SMOS surface salinity data combined with in situ observations are further used to detail the oceanic response to category 4 hurricane Igor in 2010. Argo and satellite measurements confirm the haline stratification impact on the cooling inhibition as the hurricane crossed the river plume. Over this region, the SSS mapping capability is further tested and demonstrated to monitor the horizontal distribution of the vertical stratification parameter. SMOS SSS data can thus be used to consistently anticipate the cooling inhibition in the wake of TCs traveling over the Amazon-Orinoco plume region.
Journal Of Geophysical Research-oceans (0148-0027) (Amer Geophysical Union), 2014-12 , Vol. 119 , N. 12 , P. 8271-8295

Droits : 2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00252/36326/34855.pdf
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00252/36326/34856.pdf
DOI:10.1002/2014JC010107
http://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00252/36326/