Identification

Title

Quantifying the contribution of ocean advection and surface flux to the upper-ocean salinity variability resolved by climate model simulations

Abstract

This study examines the impact of ocean advection and surface freshwater flux on the non-seasonal, upper-ocean salinity variability in two climate model simulations with eddy-resolving and eddy-parameterized ocean components (HR and LR, respectively). We assess the realism of each simulation by comparing their sea surface salinity (SSS) variance with satellite and Argo float estimates. In the extratropics, the HR variance is about five times larger than that in LR and agrees with Argo. In turn, the extratropical satellite SSS variance is smaller than that from HR and Argo by about a factor of two, potentially caused by the insufficient resolution of radiometers to capture mesoscale features and their low sensitivity to SSS in cold waters. Using a simplified salinity conservation equation for the upper-50-m ocean, we find that the advection-driven variance in HR is, on average, 10 times larger than the surface flux-driven variance, reflecting the action of mesoscale processes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7kp869v

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-02-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact