Sea surface salinity and temperature budgets in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre during SPURS experiment: august 2012-august 2013
Résumé
Variability at large to meso-scale in sea surface salinity (SSS) and sea surface temperature
(SST) is investigated in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean during the Subtropical
Atlantic Surface Salinity Experiment Strasse/SPURS in August 2012—August 2013. The
products of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission corrected from large
scale systematic errors are tested and used to retrieve meso-scale salinity features,
while OSTIA products, resolving meso-scale temperature features are used for SST.
The comparison of corrected SMOS SSS data with drifter’s in situ measurements from
SPURS experiment shows a reasonable agreement, especially during winter time with
RMS differences on the order of 0.15 pss (for 10 days, 75 km resolution SMOS product).
The analysis of SSS (SST) variability reveals that the meso-scale eddies contribute to a
substantial freshening (cooling) in the central high salinity region of the subtropical gyre,
albeit smaller than Ekman and atmospheric freshwater (heat) seasonal flux, which are
the leading terms in SSS (SST) budget. An error is estimated along with SSS and SST
budgets; as well as sensitivity to the different products in use and residuals are discussed.
The residuals in the SSS budget are large and can arise from errors in the advection
fields and freshwater flux, from neglected small scale or unresolved local processes (salt
fingering, vertical mixing, and small scale subduction, etc.). However, their magnitude is
similar to what is often parameterized as eddy horizontal diffusion to close large scale
budgets.
Domaines
Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]
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