A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation
Over the last decade, due to the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and, more recently, the Gravity and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission, our ability to measure the ocean's mean dynamic topography (MDT) from space has improved dramatically. Here we use...
Published in: | International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation |
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Language: | English |
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1983/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924412128&partnerID=8YFLogxK |
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ftubristolcris:oai:research-information.bris.ac.uk:publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 2024-04-28T08:29:37+00:00 A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation Bingham, Rory J. Haines, Keith Lea, Daniel 2015-01-01 https://hdl.handle.net/1983/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924412128&partnerID=8YFLogxK eng eng https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess Bingham , R J , Haines , K & Lea , D 2015 , ' A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation ' , International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation , vol. 35 , no. PA , pp. 140-150 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 Mean dynamic topography North Atlantic Ocean currents article 2015 ftubristolcris https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 2024-04-03T15:23:47Z Over the last decade, due to the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and, more recently, the Gravity and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission, our ability to measure the ocean's mean dynamic topography (MDT) from space has improved dramatically. Here we use GOCE to measure surface current speeds in the North Atlantic and compare our results with a range of independent estimates that use drifter data to improve small scales. We find that, with filtering, GOCE can recover 70% of the Gulf Steam strength relative to the best drifter-based estimates. In the subpolar gyre the boundary currents obtained from GOCE are close to the drifter-based estimates. Crucial to this result is careful filtering which is required to remove small-scale errors, or noise, in the computed surface. We show that our heuristic noise metric, used to determine the degree of filtering, compares well with the quadratic sum of mean sea surface and formal geoid errors obtained from the error variance-covariance matrix associated with the GOCE gravity model. At a resolution of 100 km the North Atlantic mean GOCE MDT error before filtering is 5 cm with almost all of this coming from the GOCE gravity model. Article in Journal/Newspaper North Atlantic University of Bristol: Bristol Research International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 35 140 150 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Bristol: Bristol Research |
op_collection_id |
ftubristolcris |
language |
English |
topic |
Mean dynamic topography North Atlantic Ocean currents |
spellingShingle |
Mean dynamic topography North Atlantic Ocean currents Bingham, Rory J. Haines, Keith Lea, Daniel A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
topic_facet |
Mean dynamic topography North Atlantic Ocean currents |
description |
Over the last decade, due to the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission and, more recently, the Gravity and steady state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission, our ability to measure the ocean's mean dynamic topography (MDT) from space has improved dramatically. Here we use GOCE to measure surface current speeds in the North Atlantic and compare our results with a range of independent estimates that use drifter data to improve small scales. We find that, with filtering, GOCE can recover 70% of the Gulf Steam strength relative to the best drifter-based estimates. In the subpolar gyre the boundary currents obtained from GOCE are close to the drifter-based estimates. Crucial to this result is careful filtering which is required to remove small-scale errors, or noise, in the computed surface. We show that our heuristic noise metric, used to determine the degree of filtering, compares well with the quadratic sum of mean sea surface and formal geoid errors obtained from the error variance-covariance matrix associated with the GOCE gravity model. At a resolution of 100 km the North Atlantic mean GOCE MDT error before filtering is 5 cm with almost all of this coming from the GOCE gravity model. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bingham, Rory J. Haines, Keith Lea, Daniel |
author_facet |
Bingham, Rory J. Haines, Keith Lea, Daniel |
author_sort |
Bingham, Rory J. |
title |
A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
title_short |
A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
title_full |
A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
title_fullStr |
A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
title_full_unstemmed |
A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
title_sort |
comparison of goce and drifter-based estimates of the north atlantic steady-state surface circulation |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/1983/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84924412128&partnerID=8YFLogxK |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_source |
Bingham , R J , Haines , K & Lea , D 2015 , ' A comparison of GOCE and drifter-based estimates of the North Atlantic steady-state surface circulation ' , International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation , vol. 35 , no. PA , pp. 140-150 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 |
op_relation |
https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/b1d91e05-8da5-4eb1-bc06-a90919ef2892 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2014.03.012 |
container_title |
International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation |
container_volume |
35 |
container_start_page |
140 |
op_container_end_page |
150 |
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1797587741292101632 |