The Ocean Reanalyses Intercomparison Project (ORA-IP)

• Published in: Journal of Operational Oceanography
• Main Authors: Balmaseda, M. A., Hernandez, F., Storto, A., Palmer, M. D., Alves, O., Shi, L., Smith, G. C., Toyoda, T., Valdivieso, M., Barnier, B., Behringer, D., Boyer, T., Chang, Y-S., Chepurin, G. A., Ferry, N., Forget, Gael, Fujii, Y., Good, S., Guinehut, S., Haines, K., Ishikawa, Y., Keeley, S., Koehls, A., Lee, T., Martin, M. J., Masina, S., Masuda, S., Meyssignac, B., Mogensen, K., Parent, L., Peterson, K. A., Tang, Y. M., Yin, Y., Vernieres, G., Wang, X., Waters, J., Wedd, R., Wang, O., Xue, Y., Chevallier, M., Lemieux, J-F., Dupont, F., Kuragano, T., Kamachi, M., Awaji, T., Caltabiano, A., Wilmer-Becker, K., Gaillard, Fabienne
• Other Authors: Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), European Project: 218812,EC:FP7:SPA,FP7-SPACE-2007-1,MYOCEAN(2009)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: CCSD 2015
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Ora; Southern Ocean; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04200502; https://doi.org/10.1080/1755876X.2015.1022329

International audience Uncertainty in ocean analysis methods and deficiencies in the observing system are major obstacles for the reliable reconstruction of the past ocean climate. The variety of existing ocean reanalyses is exploited in a multi-reanalysis ensemble to improve the ocean state estimation and to gauge uncertainty levels. The ensemble-based analysis of signal-to-noise ratio allows the identification of ocean characteristics for which the estimation is robust (such as tropical mixed-layer-depth, upper ocean heat content), and where large uncertainty exists (deep ocean, Southern Ocean, sea ice thickness, salinity), providing guidance for future enhancement of the observing and data assimilation systems.