Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 20 (2007): 5376–5390, doi:10.1175/2007JCLI1714.1.

Description: Global estimates of oceanic evaporation (Evp) from 1958 to 2005 have been recently developed by the Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Fluxes (OAFlux) project at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The nearly 50-yr time series shows that the decadal change of the global oceanic evaporation (Evp) is marked by a distinct transition from a downward trend to an upward trend around 1977–78. Since the transition, the global oceanic Evp has been up about 11 cm yr−1 (10%), from a low at 103 cm yr−1 in 1977 to a peak at 114 cm yr−1 in 2003. The increase in Evp was most dramatic during the 1990s. The uncertainty of the estimates is about ±2.74 cm yr−1. By utilizing the newly developed datasets of Evp and related air–sea variables, the study investigated the cause of the decadal change in oceanic Evp. The decadal differences between the 1990s and the 1970s indicates that the increase of Evp in the 1990s occurred over a global scale and had spatially coherent structures. Larger Evp is most pronounced in two key regions—one is the paths of the global western boundary currents and their extensions, and the other is the tropical Indo-Pacific warm water pools. It is also found that Evp was enlarged primarily during the hemispheric wintertime (defined as the mean of December–February for the northern oceans and June–August for the southern oceans). Despite the dominant upward tendency over the global basins, a slight reduction in Evp appeared in such regions as the subtropical centers of the Evp maxima as well as the eastern equatorial Pacific and Atlantic cold tongues. An empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis was performed for the yearly winter-mean time series of Evp and the related air–sea variables [i.e., wind speed (U) and air–sea humidity differences (dq)]. The analysis suggested a dominant role of the wind forcing in the decadal change of both Evp and dq. It is hypothesized that wind impacts Evp in two ways. The first way is direct: the greater wind speed induces more evaporation by carrying water vapor away from the evaporating surface to allow the air–sea humidity gradients to be reestablished at a faster pace. The second way is indirect: the enhanced surface wind strengthens the wind-driven subtropical gyre, which in turn drives a greater heat transport by the western boundary currents, warms up SST along the paths of the currents and extensions, and causes more evaporation by enlarging the air–sea humidity gradients. The EOF analysis performed for the time series of the global annual-mean Evp fields showed that the first three EOF modes account for nearly 50% of the total variance. The mode 1 variability represents the upward trend in Evp after 1978 and is attributable to the increased U, and the mode 2 variability explains much of the downward trend in Evp before 1978 and is correlated to the global dq variability. The EOF mode 3 of Evp captures the interannual variability of Evp on time scales of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, with the center of action over the eastern equatorial Pacific.

Description: The author acknowledges the supporting grants from the NOAA Office of Climate Observations (OCO) and Climate Change Data and Detection (CCDD) and from the NASA Ocean Vector Wind Science Team.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2017. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 30 (2017): 3829-3852, doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0479.1.

Description: This study provides an assessment of the uncertainty in ocean surface (OS) freshwater budgets and variability using evaporation E and precipitation P from 10 atmospheric reanalyses, two combined satellite-based E − P products, and two observation-based salinity products. Three issues are examined: the uncertainty level in the OS freshwater budget in atmospheric reanalyses, the uncertainty structure and association with the global ocean wet/dry zones, and the potential of salinity in ascribing the uncertainty in E − P. The products agree on the global mean pattern but differ considerably in magnitude. The OS freshwater budgets are 129 ± 10 (8%) cm yr−1 for E, 118 ± 11 (9%) cm yr−1 for P, and 11 ± 4 (36%) cm yr−1 for E − P, where the mean and error represent the ensemble mean and one standard deviation of the ensemble spread. The E − P uncertainty exceeds the uncertainty in E and P by a factor of 4 or more. The large uncertainty is attributed to P in the tropical wet zone. Most reanalyses tend to produce a wider tropical rainband when compared to satellite products, with the exception of two recent reanalyses that implement an observation-based correction for the model-generated P over land. The disparity in the width and the extent of seasonal migrations of the tropical wet zone causes a large spread in P, implying that the tropical moist physics and the realism of tropical rainfall remain a key challenge. Satellite salinity appears feasible to evaluate the fidelity of E − P variability in three tropical areas, where the uncertainty diagnosis has a global indication.

Description: Primary support for the study is provided by the NOAAModeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) Program’s Climate Reanalysis Task Force (CRTF) through Grant NA13OAR4310106.

Description: 2017-11-02

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 46 (2010): 85-102, doi:10.1175/2009JPO4168.1.

Description: The existence of a cool and salty sea surface skin under evaporation was first proposed by Saunders in 1967, but few efforts have since been made to perceive the salt component of the skin layer. With two salinity missions scheduled to launch in the coming years, this study attempted to revisit the Saunders concept and to utilize presently available air–sea forcing datasets to analyze, understand, and interpret the effect of the salty skin and its implication for remote sensing of ocean salinity. Similar to surface cooling, the skin salinification would occur primarily at low and midlatitudes in regions that are characterized by low winds or high evaporation. On average, the skin is saltier than the interior water by 0.05–0.15 psu and cooler by 0.2°–0.5°C. The cooler and saltier skin at the top is always statically unstable, and the tendency to overturn is controlled by cooling. Once the skin layer overturns, the time to reestablish the full increase of skin salinity was reported to be on the order of 15 min, which is approximately 90 times slower than that for skin temperature. Because the radiation received from a footprint is averaged over an area to give a single pixel value, the slow recovery by the salt diffusion process might cause a slight reduction in area-averaged skin salinity and thus obscure the salty skin effect on radiometer retrievals. In the presence of many geophysical error sources in remote sensing of ocean salinity, the salt enrichment at the surface skin does not appear to be a concern.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Climate 20 (2007): 3190-3209, doi:10.1175/JCLI4163.1.

Description: This study investigated the accuracy and physical representation of air–sea surface heat flux estimates for the Indian Ocean on annual, seasonal, and interannual time scales. Six heat flux products were analyzed, including the newly developed latent and sensible heat fluxes from the Objectively Analyzed Air–Sea Heat Fluxes (OAFlux) project and net shortwave and longwave radiation results from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), the heat flux analysis from the Southampton Oceanography Centre (SOC), the National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis 1 (NCEP1) and reanalysis-2 (NCEP2) datasets, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts operational (ECMWF-OP) and 40-yr Re-Analysis (ERA-40) products. This paper presents the analysis of the six products in depicting the mean, the seasonal cycle, and the interannual variability of the net heat flux into the ocean. Two time series of in situ flux measurements, one taken from a 1-yr Arabian Sea Experiment field program and the other from a 1-month Joint Air–Sea Monsoon Interaction Experiment (JASMINE) field program in the Bay of Bengal were used to evaluate the statistical properties of the flux products over the measurement periods. The consistency between the six products on seasonal and interannual time scales was investigated using a standard deviation analysis and a physically based correlation analysis. The study has three findings. First of all, large differences exist in the mean value of the six heat flux products. Part of the differences may be attributable to the bias in the numerical weather prediction (NWP) models that underestimates the net heat flux into the Indian Ocean. Along the JASMINE ship tracks, the four NWP modeled mean fluxes all have a sign opposite to the observations, with NCEP1 being underestimated by 53 W m−2 (the least biased) and ECMWF-OP by 108 W m−2 (the most biased). At the Arabian Sea buoy site, the NWP mean fluxes also have an underestimation bias, with the smallest bias of 26 W m−2 (ERA-40) and the largest bias of 69 W m−2 (NCEP1). On the other hand, the OAFlux+ISCCP has the best comparison at both measurement sites. Second, the bias effect changes with the time scale. Despite the fact that the mean is biased significantly, there is no major bias in the seasonal cycle of all the products except for ECMWF-OP. The latter does not have a fixed mean due to the frequent updates of the model platform. Finally, among the four products (OAFlux+ISCCP, ERA-40, NCEP1, and NCEP2) that can be used for studying interannual variability, OAFlux+ISCCP and ERA-40 Qnet have good consistency as judged from both statistical and physical measures. NCEP1 shows broad agreement with the two products, with varying details. By comparison, NCEP2 is the least representative of the Qnet variabilities over the basin scale.

Description: This work is supported by the NOAA Office of Climate Observation and the Office of Climate Change and Data Detection under Grant NA17RJ1223.

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): C11013, doi:10.1029/2012JC008069.

Description: The study used 126 buoy time series as a benchmark to evaluate a satellite-based daily, 0.25-degree gridded global ocean surface vector wind analysis developed by the Objectively Analyzed airs-sea Fluxes (OAFlux) project. The OAFlux winds were produced from synthesizing wind speed and direction retrievals from 12 sensors acquired during the satellite era from July 1987 onward. The 12 sensors included scatterometers (QuikSCAT and ASCAT), passive microwave radiometers (AMSRE, SSMI and SSMIS series), and the passive polarimetric microwave radiometer from WindSat. Accuracy and consistency of the OAFlux time series are the key issues examined here. A total of 168,836 daily buoy measurements were assembled from 126 buoys, including both active and archive sites deployed during 1988–2010. With 106 buoys from the tropical array network, the buoy winds are a good reference for wind speeds in low and mid-range. The buoy comparison shows that OAFlux wind speed has a mean difference of −0.13 ms−1 and an RMS difference of 0.71 ms−1, and wind direction has a mean difference of −0.55 degree and an RMS difference of 17 degrees. Vector correlation of OAFlux and buoy winds is of 0.9 and higher over almost all the sites. Influence of surface currents on the OAFlux/buoy mean difference pattern is displayed in the tropical Pacific, with higher (lower) OAFlux wind speed in regions where wind and current have the opposite (same) sign. Improved representation of daily wind variability by the OAFlux synthesis is suggested, and a decadal signal in global wind speed is evident.

Description: The authors are grateful for the support of the NASA Ocean Vector Wind Science Team (OVWST) under grant NNA10AO86G during the five-year development of the OAFlux wind synthesis products. Support from the NOAA Office of Climate Observation (OCO) under grant NA09OAR4320129 in establishing and maintaining the buoy validation database for surface fluxes is gratefully acknowledged.

Description: 2013-05-14

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 118 (2013): 5353–5375, doi:10.1002/jgrc.20386.

Description: A satellite-based global analysis of high-resolution (0.25°) ocean surface turbulent latent and sensible heat fluxes was developed by the objectively analyzed air-sea fluxes (OAFlux) project. Resolving air-sea flux down to the order to 0.25° is critical for the description of the air-sea interaction on mesoscale scales. In this study, we evaluate the high-resolution product in depicting air-sea exchange in the eddy-rich Gulf Stream region. Two approaches were used for evaluation, one is point-to-point validation based on six moored buoys in the region, and another is basin-scale analysis in terms of wave number spectra and probability density functions. An intercomparison is also carried out between OAFlux-0.25°, OAFlux-1°, and four atmospheric reanalyses. Results indicate that OAFlux-0.25° is able to depict sharp oceanic fronts and has the best performance among the six participating products in comparison with buoy measurements. The mean OAFlux-0.25° differences in latent and sensible heat flux with respect to the buoy are 7.6 Wm−2 (7.7%) with root-mean-square (RMS) difference of 44.9 Wm−2, and 0.0 Wm−2 with RMS difference of 19.4 Wm−2, respectively. Large differences are primarily due to mismatch in SST between gridded data and point measurements when strong spatial gradients are presented. The wave number spectra and decorrelation length scale analysis indicate OAFlux-0.25° depicts eddy variability much better than OAFlux-1° and the four reanalyses; however, its capability in detecting eddies with smaller scale still needs to be improved. Among the four reanalyses, CFSR stands out as the best in comparison with OAFlux-0.25°.

Description: This study was supported by NOAA Ocean Climate Observations program (OCO) under grant NA09OAR4320129 and the NASA Ocean Vector Wind Science Team (OVWST) under grant NNA10AO86G.

Description: 2014-04-15

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Hermes, J. C., Masumoto, Y., Beal, L. M., Roxy, M. K., Vialard, J., Andres, M., Annamalai, H., Behera, S., D'Adamo, N., Doi, T., Peng, M., Han, W., Hardman-Mountford, N., Hendon, H., Hood, R., Kido, S., Lee, C., Lees, T., Lengaigne, M., Li, J., Lumpkin, R., Navaneeth, K. N., Milligan, B., McPhaden, M. J., Ravichandran, M., Shinoda, T., Singh, A., Sloyan, B., Strutton, P. G., Subramanian, A. C., Thurston, S., Tozuka, T., Ummenhofer, C. C., Unnikrishnan, A. S., Venkatesan, R., Wang, D., Wiggert, J., Yu, L., & Yu, W. (2019). A sustained ocean observing system in the Indian Ocean for climate related scientific knowledge and societal needs. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 355, doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00355.

Description: The Indian Ocean is warming faster than any of the global oceans and its climate is uniquely driven by the presence of a landmass at low latitudes, which causes monsoonal winds and reversing currents. The food, water, and energy security in the Indian Ocean rim countries and islands are intrinsically tied to its climate, with marine environmental goods and services, as well as trade within the basin, underpinning their economies. Hence, there are a range of societal needs for Indian Ocean observation arising from the influence of regional phenomena and climate change on, for instance, marine ecosystems, monsoon rains, and sea-level. The Indian Ocean Observing System (IndOOS), is a sustained observing system that monitors basin-scale ocean-atmosphere conditions, while providing flexibility in terms of emerging technologies and scientificand societal needs, and a framework for more regional and coastal monitoring. This paper reviews the societal and scientific motivations, current status, and future directions of IndOOS, while also discussing the need for enhanced coastal, shelf, and regional observations. The challenges of sustainability and implementation are also addressed, including capacity building, best practices, and integration of resources. The utility of IndOOS ultimately depends on the identification of, and engagement with, end-users and decision-makers and on the practical accessibility and transparency of data for a range of products and for decision-making processes. Therefore we highlight current progress, issues and challenges related to end user engagement with IndOOS, as well as the needs of the data assimilation and modeling communities. Knowledge of the status of the Indian Ocean climate and ecosystems and predictability of its future, depends on a wide range of socio-economic and environmental data, a significant part of which is provided by IndOOS.

Description: This work was supported by the PMEL contribution no. 4934.