A Comparison between the Generalized Digital Environmental Model and Levitus Climatologies

• Main Authors: Teague, William J., Carron, Michael J., Hogan, Patrick J.
• Other Authors: NAVAL OCEAN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY STENNIS SPACE CENTER MS
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1990
• Subjects: Meteorology; Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; *MARINE CLIMATOLOGY; *OCEAN MODELS; *SEA WATER; REPRINTS; TEMPERATURE; GLOBAL; DYNAMICS; GRIDS; SEASONAL VARIATIONS; SALINITY; OCEAN ENVIRONMENTS; GULF STREAM; NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN; HEIGHT; DIGITAL SIMULATION; NORTH PACIFIC OCEAN; INDIAN OCEAN; MATHEMATICAL MODELS; OCEANOGRAPHY; SHEAR PROPERTIES; DATA BASES; GDEM COMPUTER PROGRAM; LEVITUS CLIMATOLOGIES; PE62435N; WUDN256002; Indian; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA223655; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA223655

Two ocean climatologies of temperature and salinity, the Generalized Digital Environmental Model (GDEM) and the Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean, are compared. Dynamic height fields are computed by season from each climatology for the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Indian oceans and are compared on a 1 degree latitude-longitude grid. Large-scale oceanographic features are generally found to be similarly represented in both climatologies. GDEM appears to render better representations of seasonal variability and regions of high current shear, such as the Gulf Stream, because of a different smoothing method and a finer grid spacing. Maps of dynamic heights from both climatologies are presented, and their similarities and differences are discussed. The method for the construction of GDEM is also described in detail. Keywords: Ocean models; Sea-water temperature/salinity; Seasonal variations; Digital simulations; Data bases, Mesoscale oceanography. Reprints. Pub. in Jnl. of Geophysical Research, v95 nC5 p7167-7183, 15 May 1990.