Sea Surface Salinity Observations with Lagrangian Drifters in the Tropical North Atlantic During SPURS: Circulation, Fluxes, and Comparisons with Remotely Sensed Salinity from Aquarius

• Published in: Oceanography
• Main Authors: Centurioni, Luca R., Hormann, Verena, Chao, Yi, Reverdin, Gilles, Font, Jordi, Lee, Dong-Kyu
• Other Authors: Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO - UC San Diego), University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), University of California (UC)-University of California (UC), Remote Sensing Solutions, UCLA Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE), University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California (UC)-University of California (UC)-NASA, Interactions et Processus au sein de la couche de Surface Océanique (IPSO), Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat : Expérimentations et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institute of Marine Sciences / Institut de Ciències del Mar Barcelona (ICM), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas España = Spanish National Research Council Spain (CSIC), Department of Oceanography, Pusan National University, Busan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2015
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01274715; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01274715/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-01274715/file/28-1_centurioni.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2015.08

International audience The Global Drifter Program deployed a total of 144 Lagrangian drifters drogued at 15 m depth, including 88 equipped with salinity sensors, in support of the first Salinity Processes in the Upper-ocean Regional Study (SPURS-1) in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean with the goal of measuring salt fluxes associated with surface currents. The quality-controlled data set consists of 996,583 salinity observations collected between August 2012 and April 2014. A comparison of the drifter salinities with Aquarius satellite sea surface salinity (SSS) data shows that the lifespan of the salinity sensor fitted to the drifters is of the order of one year. The salinity and velocity data from the drifters were used to validate salt transport divergence computed with satellite products, with satellite salinity taken from the standard Aquarius v3.0 data set. The results indicate good agreement between the two independent methods, and also demonstrate that the effect of the eddy field combined with SSS variability at the surface dominates the signal. SSS variability within spatial bins as compared to Aquarius-beam footprints measured by drifters can be in excess of 0.1 psu. This result suggests that careful evaluation of the representation error is required when single-point in situ measurements, such as those collected by Argo floats, are used to validate spatially averaged Aquarius salinity data.