Towards measuring the meridional overturning circulation from space

We present a step towards measuring the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), i.e. the full-depth water mass transport, in the North Atlantic using satellite data. Using the Parallel Ocean Climate Model, we simulate satellite observations of ocean bottom pressure and sea surface height (SSH) ove...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: R. Tokmakian, R. E. Houseago-Stokes, P. Challenor, A. G. P. Shaw, D. Cromwell
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2007
Subjects:
geo
envir
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://www.ocean-sci.net/3/223/2007/os-3-223-2007.pdf
https://doaj.org/article/7277b42b02334882a2e04a41d748e925
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Summary:We present a step towards measuring the meridional overturning circulation (MOC), i.e. the full-depth water mass transport, in the North Atlantic using satellite data. Using the Parallel Ocean Climate Model, we simulate satellite observations of ocean bottom pressure and sea surface height (SSH) over the 20-year period from 1979–1998, and use a linear model to estimate the MOC. As much as 93.5% of the variability in the smoothed transport is thereby explained. This increases to 98% when SSH and bottom pressure are first smoothed. We present initial studies of predicting the time evolution of the MOC, with promising results. It should be stressed that this is an initial step only, and that to produce an actual working system for measuring the MOC from space would require considerable future work.

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