1pAO8. Comparison of ATOC heat content estimates with combined estimates from a general circulation model and TOPEX/POSEIDON altimetry.

Session: Monday Afternoon, December 2

Time: 3:55


Author: Dimitris Menemenlis
Location: Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02143
Author: Detlef Stammer
Location: Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02143
Author: Carl Wunsch
Location: Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02143
Author: Chris Hill
Location: Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02143
Author: John Marshall
Location: Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sci., MIT, Cambridge, MA 02143

Abstract:

To study the role of the oceans in climate, weather, and other ocean--atmosphere phenomena, one needs to observe a global-scale turbulent fluid that is opaque to electromagnetic radiation. Acoustic tomography and satellite altimetry provide complementary observational technologies for this purpose: Tomography provides path-averaged heat content estimates with a degree of vertical resolution commensurate with the number of resolved acoustic rays or modes; altimetry provides depth-integrated heat content estimates with good horizontal coverage but with additional contributions from the wind-driven circulation and from uncertainties in the mass and salt budgets. These data, in combination with the dynamical descriptions embodied in general circulation models, are powerful tools for monitoring large-scale oceanic variability. As a first step toward the demonstration of a complete system, heat content estimates obtained by the acoustic thermometry of ocean climate (ATOC) project are compared with those obtained by constraining the MIT ocean circulation model with TOPEX/POSEIDON altimeter data. This work extends a technique that has already been successfully deployed to make basin scale state estimates in the Western Mediterranean. [Work supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program through ARPA.]


ASA 132nd meeting - Hawaii, December 1996