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): 2760-2768, doi:10.1175/JCLI4138a.1

Description: The correlation between parameters characterizing observed westerly wind bursts (WWBs) in the equatorial Pacific and the large-scale SST is analyzed using singular value decomposition. The WWB parameters include the amplitude, location, scale, and probability of occurrence for a given SST distribution rather than the wind stress itself. This approach therefore allows for a nonlinear relationship between the SST and the wind signal of the WWBs. It is found that about half of the variance of the WWB parameters is explained by only two large-scale SST modes. The first mode represents a developed El Niño event, while the second mode represents the seasonal cycle. More specifically, the central longitude of WWBs, their longitudinal extent, and their probability seem to be determined to a significant degree by the ENSO-driven signal. The amplitude of the WWBs is found to be strongly influenced by the phase of the seasonal cycle. It is concluded that the WWBs, while partially stochastic, seem an inherent part of the large-scale deterministic ENSO dynamics. Implications for ENSO predictability and prediction are discussed.

Description: Eli Tziperman is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Climate Dynamics Program Grant ATM- 0351123 and by the McDonnell Foundation. Lisan Yu is supported by the NASA Ocean Vector Wind Science Team under JPL Contract 1216955 and NSF Climate Dynamics Grant ATM-0350266.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2011. 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 41 (2011): 1741–1755, doi:10.1175/2011JPO4437.1.

Description: An in-depth data analysis was conducted to understand the occurrence of a strong sea surface temperature (SST) front in the central Bay of Bengal before the formation of Cyclone Nargis in April 2008. Nargis changed its course after encountering the front and tracked along the front until making landfall. One unique feature of this SST front was its coupling with high sea surface height anomalies (SSHAs), which is unusual for a basin where SST is normally uncorrelated with SSHA. The high SSHAs were associated with downwelling Rossby waves, and the interaction between downwelling and surface fresh waters was a key mechanism to account for the observed SST–SSHA coupling. The near-surface salinity field in the bay is characterized by strong stratification and a pronounced horizontal gradient, with low salinity in the northeast. During the passage of downwelling Rossby waves, freshening of the surface layer was observed when surface velocities were southwestward. Horizontal convergence of freshwater associated with downwelling Rossby waves increased the buoyancy of the upper layer and caused the mixed layer to shoal to within a few meters of the surface. Surface heating trapped in the thin mixed layer caused the fresh layer to warm, whereas the increase in buoyancy from low-salinity waters enhanced the high SSHA associated with Rossby waves. Thus, high SST coincided with high SSHA. The dominant role of salinity in controlling high SSHA suggests that caution should be exercised when computing hurricane heat potential in the bay from SSHA. This situation is different from most tropical oceans, where temperature has the dominant effect on SSHA.

Description: This work was supported by the NOAA/Office of Climate Observation (OCO) program.

Description: Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society 2006. 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 19 (2006): 6153–6169, doi:10.1175/JCLI3970.1.

Description: The present study used a new net surface heat flux (Qnet) product obtained from the Objective Analyzed Air–Sea Fluxes (OAFlux) project and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) to examine two specific issues—one is to which degree Qnet controls seasonal variations of sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Atlantic Ocean (20°S–20°N, east of 60°W), and the other is whether the physical relation can serve as a measure to evaluate the physical representation of a heat flux product. To better address the two issues, the study included the analysis of three additional heat flux products: the Southampton Oceanographic Centre (SOC) heat flux analysis based on ship reports, and the model fluxes from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) reanalysis and the 40-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40). The study also uses the monthly subsurface temperature fields from the World Ocean Atlas to help analyze the seasonal changes of the mixed layer depth (hMLD). The study showed that the tropical Atlantic sector could be divided into two regimes based on the influence level of Qnet. SST variability poleward of 5°S and 10°N is dominated by the annual cycle of Qnet. In these regions the warming (cooling) of the sea surface is highly correlated with the increased (decreased) Qnet confined in a relatively shallow (deep) hMLD. The seasonal evolution of SST variability is well predicted by simply relating the local Qnet with a variable hMLD. On the other hand, the influence of Qnet diminishes in the deep Tropics within 5°S and 10°N and ocean dynamic processes play a dominant role. The dynamics-induced changes in SST are most evident along the two belts, one of which is located on the equator and the other off the equator at about 3°N in the west, which tilts to about 10°N near the northwestern African coast. The study also showed that if the degree of consistency between the correlation relationships of Qnet, hMLD, and SST variability serves as a measure of the quality of the Qnet product, then the Qnet from OAFlux + ISCCP and ERA-40 are most physically representative, followed by SOC. The NCEP–NCAR Qnet is least representative. It should be noted that the Qnet from OAFlux + ISCCP and ERA-40 have a quite different annual mean pattern. OAFlux + ISCCP agrees with SOC in that the tropical Atlantic sector gains heat from the atmosphere on the annual mean basis, where the ERA-40 and the NCEP–NCAR model reanalyses indicate that positive Qnet occurs only in the narrow equatorial band and in the eastern portion of the tropical basin. Nevertheless, seasonal variances of the Qnet from OAFlux + ISCCP and ERA-40 are very similar once the respective mean is removed, which explains why the two agree with each other in accounting for the seasonal variability of SST. In summary, the study suggests that an accurate estimation of surface heat flux is crucially important for understanding and predicting SST fluctuations in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It also suggests that future emphasis on improving the surface heat flux estimation should be placed more on reducing the mean bias.

Description: This study is support by the NOAA CLIVAR Atlantic under Grant NA06GP0453 and NOAA Climate observations and Climate Change and Data Detection under Grant NA17RJ1223.

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Cronin, M. F., Gentemann, C. L., Edson, J., Ueki, I., Bourassa, M., Brown, S., Clayson, C. A., Fairall, C. W., Farrar, J. T., Gille, S. T., Gulev, S., Josey, S. A., Kato, S., Katsumata, M., Kent, E., Krug, M., Minnett, P. J., Parfitt, R., Pinker, R. T., Stackhouse, P. W., Jr., Swart, S., Tomita, H., Vandemark, D., Weller, R. A., Yoneyama, K., Yu, L., & Zhang, D. Air-sea fluxes with a focus on heat and momentum. Frontiers in Marine Science, 6, (2019): 430, doi:10.3389/fmars.2019.00430.

Description: Turbulent and radiative exchanges of heat between the ocean and atmosphere (hereafter heat fluxes), ocean surface wind stress, and state variables used to estimate them, are Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) influencing weather and climate. This paper describes an observational strategy for producing 3-hourly, 25-km (and an aspirational goal of hourly at 10-km) heat flux and wind stress fields over the global, ice-free ocean with breakthrough 1-day random uncertainty of 15 W m–2 and a bias of less than 5 W m–2. At present this accuracy target is met only for OceanSITES reference station moorings and research vessels (RVs) that follow best practices. To meet these targets globally, in the next decade, satellite-based observations must be optimized for boundary layer measurements of air temperature, humidity, sea surface temperature, and ocean wind stress. In order to tune and validate these satellite measurements, a complementary global in situ flux array, built around an expanded OceanSITES network of time series reference station moorings, is also needed. The array would include 500–1000 measurement platforms, including autonomous surface vehicles, moored and drifting buoys, RVs, the existing OceanSITES network of 22 flux sites, and new OceanSITES expanded in 19 key regions. This array would be globally distributed, with 1–3 measurement platforms in each nominal 10° by 10° box. These improved moisture and temperature profiles and surface data, if assimilated into Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, would lead to better representation of cloud formation processes, improving state variables and surface radiative and turbulent fluxes from these models. The in situ flux array provides globally distributed measurements and metrics for satellite algorithm development, product validation, and for improving satellite-based, NWP and blended flux products. In addition, some of these flux platforms will also measure direct turbulent fluxes, which can be used to improve algorithms for computation of air-sea exchange of heat and momentum in flux products and models. With these improved air-sea fluxes, the ocean’s influence on the atmosphere will be better quantified and lead to improved long-term weather forecasts, seasonal-interannual-decadal climate predictions, and regional climate projections.

Description: EK was funded by the NERC CLASS Program (NE/R015953/1). CLG was funded by NASA grant 80NSSC18K0837. SG was funded by MEGAGRANT P220 program (#14.W03.31.0006).

Description: Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2017. 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 122 (2017): 4068–4087, doi:10.1002/2016JC012254.

Description: This study provides an analysis of the Mediterranean Sea surface energy budget using nine surface heat flux climatologies. The ensemble mean estimation shows that the net downward shortwave radiation (192 ± 19 W m−2) is balanced by latent heat flux (−98 ± 10 W m−2), followed by net longwave radiation (−78 ± 13 W m−2) and sensible heat flux (−13 ± 4 W m−2). The resulting net heat budget (Qnet) is 2 ± 12 W m−2 into the ocean, which appears to be warm biased. The annual-mean Qnet should be −5.6 ± 1.6 W m−2 when estimated from the observed net transport through the Strait of Gibraltar. To diagnose the uncertainty in nine Qnet climatologies, we constructed Qnet from the heat budget equation by using historic hydrological observations to determine the heat content changes and advective heat flux. We also used the Qnet from a data-assimilated global ocean state estimation as an additional reference. By comparing with the two reference Qnet estimates, we found that seven products (NCEP 1, NCEP 2, CFSR, ERA-Interim, MERRA, NOCSv2.0, and OAFlux+ISCCP) overestimate Qnet, with magnitude ranging from 6 to 27 W m−2, while two products underestimate Qnet by −6 W m−2 (JRA55) and −14 W m−2 (CORE.2). Together with the previous warm pool work of Song and Yu (2013), we show that CFSR, MERRA, NOCSv2.0, and OAFlux+ISCCP are warm-biased not only in the western Pacific warm pool but also in the Mediterranean Sea, while CORE.2 is cold-biased in both regions. The NCEP 1, 2, and ERA-Interim are cold-biased over the warm pool but warm-biased in the Mediterranean Sea.

Description: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Grant Number: 41306003 and 41430963; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities Grant Number: 0905-841313038, 1100-841262028, and 0905-201462003; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant Number: 2013M531647; Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Grant Number: BS2013HZ015; Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology

Description: 2017-11-16