Publication Date:
2022-10-26
Description:
© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cowley, R., Killick, R. E., Boyer, T., Gouretski, V., Reseghetti, F., Kizu, S., Palmer, M. D., Cheng, L., Storto, A., Le Menn, M., Simoncelli, S., Macdonald, A. M., & Domingues, C. M. International Quality-Controlled Ocean Database (IQuOD) v0.1: the temperature uncertainty specification. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, (2021): 689695, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.689695.
Description:
Ocean temperature observations are crucial for a host of climate research and forecasting activities, such as climate monitoring, ocean reanalysis and state estimation, seasonal-to-decadal forecasts, and ocean forecasting. For all of these applications, it is crucial to understand the uncertainty attached to each of the observations, accounting for changes in instrument technology and observing practices over time. Here, we describe the rationale behind the uncertainty specification provided for all in situ ocean temperature observations in the International Quality-controlled Ocean Database (IQuOD) v0.1, a value-added data product served alongside the World Ocean Database (WOD). We collected information from manufacturer specifications and other publications, providing the end user with uncertainty estimates based mainly on instrument type, along with extant auxiliary information such as calibration and collection method. The provision of a consistent set of observation uncertainties will provide a more complete understanding of historical ocean observations used to examine the changing environment. Moving forward, IQuOD will continue to work with the ocean observation, data assimilation and ocean climate communities to further refine uncertainty quantification. We encourage submissions of metadata and information about historical practices to the IQuOD project and WOD.
Description:
This work was supported by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group 148, funded by national SCOR committees and a grant to SCOR from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE-1546580); and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO/International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IOC/IODE) IQuOD Steering Group. RC was supported through funding from the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub of the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program. RK and MP were supported by the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme funded by BEIS and Defra. CD was supported by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant DP160103130), ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023) and by the Natural Environment Research Council (TICTOC, NE/P019293/1). AM's contribution was supported by National Science Foundation grant OCE#-1923387 and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration grant #NA16OAR4310172.
Keywords:
XBT
;
Ocean temperature profiles
;
Ocean data assimilation
;
Ocean climate
;
Accuracy
;
Uncertainty
;
Bias correction
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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