Global seasonal cycles of the wind and wind stress fields estimated from the 8-yr record (September 1999–August 2007) of wind measurements by the NASA Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) are presented. While this atlas, referred to here as the Scatterometer Climatology of Ocean Winds (SCOW), consists of 12 variables, the focus here...
The atmospheric response to the oceanic forcing in the eastern Pacific along the northern equatorial sea surface temperature (SST) front is investigated in terms of sensible and latent heat flux during the 6-month period from 28 July 1999 to 27 January 2000 and the 7-month period from 28 June 2000...
The ability of six climate models to capture the observed coupling between SST and surface wind stress in the vicinity of strong midlatitude SST fronts is analyzed. The analysis emphasizes air–sea interactions associated with ocean meanders in the eastward extensions of major western boundary current systems such as the Gulf...
This study evaluates the impacts of sea surface temperature (SST) specification and grid resolution on numerical simulations of air–sea coupling near oceanic fronts through analyses of surface winds from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) model. The 9 May 2001 change of the boundary condition from the Reynolds...
Obtaining global sea surface temperature (SST) fields for the ocean boundary condition in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and for climate research has long been problematic. Historically, such fields have been constructed by a blending of in situ observations from ships and buoys and satellite infrared observations from the Advanced...
Ten years of sea-surface height (SSH) fields constructed from the merged TOPEX/Poseidon (T/P) and ERS-1/2 altimeter datasets are analyzed to investigate mesoscale variability in the global ocean. The higher resolution of the merged dataset reveals that more than 50% of the variability over much of the World Ocean is accounted...
The marine atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) response to sea surface temperature (SST) perturbations with wavelengths shorter than 30° longitude by 10° latitude along the Agulhas Return Current (ARC) is described from the first year of SST and cloud liquid water (CLW) measurements from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) on...
Satellite measurements of surface wind stress from the QuikSCAT scatterometer and sea surface temperature (SST) from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Microwave Imager are analyzed for the three-month period 21 July–20 October 1999 to investigate ocean–atmosphere coupling in the eastern tropical Pacific. Oceanic tropical instability waves (TIWs) with periods of...
The surface wind stress response to sea surface temperature (SST) over the latitude range 30°–60°S in the Southern Ocean is described from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's QuikSCAT scatterometer observations of wind stress and Reynolds analyses of SST during the 2-yr period August 1999 to July 2001. While ocean–atmosphere...
The value of Quick Scatterometer (QuikSCAT) measurements of 10-m ocean vector winds for marine weather prediction is investigated from two Northern Hemisphere case studies. The first of these focuses on an intense cyclone with hurricane-force winds that occurred over the extratropical western North Pacific on 10 January 2005. The second...
Sampling patterns and sampling errors from various scatterometer datasets are examined. Four single and two tandem scatterometer mission scenarios are considered. The single scatterometer missions are ERS (with a single, narrow swath), NSCAT and ASCAT (dual swaths), and QuikSCAT (a single, broad swath obtained from the SeaWinds instrument). The two...
Satellite measurements of sea-surface temperature (SST) by the TRMM Microwave Imager reveal previously unreported features of tropical instability waves (TIWs). In the Pacific, TIW-related variability is observed from the eastern boundary to at least 160°E. Cusp-shaped distortions of SST fronts and associated trains of anticyclonic vortices both north and south...
Measurements of near-surface winds by the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) from October 1996 through June 1997 are analyzed to investigate the three major wind jets along the Pacific coast of Central America that blow over the Gulfs of Tehuantepec, Papagayo, and Panama. Each jet is easily identifiable as locally intense offshore...
Satellite estimates of winds at 10 m above the sea surface by the NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) during the 9-month period October 1996–June 1997 are analyzed to investigate the correlations between the three major wind jets along the Pacific coast of Central America and their relationships to the wind and pressure...
Observations, primarily from satellites, have shown a statistical relationship between the surface wind stress and underlying sea surface temperature (SST) on intermediate space and time scales, in many regions inclusive of eastern boundary upwelling current systems. In this paper, this empirical SST–wind stress relationship is utilized to provide a simple...
Boreal summer intraseasonal (30–90-day time scale) sea surface temperature (SST) variability in the east Pacific warm pool is examined using Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI) sea surface temperatures during 1998–2005. Intraseasonal SST variance maximizes at two locations in the warm pool: in the vicinity of 9°N, 92°W...
Satellite observations of wind stress and sea surface temperature (SST) are analyzed to investigate ocean–atmosphere interaction in the California Current System (CCS). As in regions of strong SST fronts elsewhere in the World Ocean, SST in the CCS region is positively correlated with surface wind stress when SST fronts are...
Mean-squared errors of surface geostrophic velocity estimates from the crossover and parallel-track methods are calculated for altimeters in the Ocean Topography Experiment (TOPEX)/Poseidon and Jason orbits. As part of the crossover method analysis, the filtering properties and errors of cross-track speed estimates are examined. Velocity estimates from both the crossover...
A technique previously developed for assessing the effects of sampling errors on sea surface height (SSH) fields constructed from satellite altimeter data is extended to include measurement errors, thus providing estimates of the total mean-squared error of the SSH fields. The measurement error contribution becomes an important consideration with the...
The latitudinal structure of annual equatorial Rossby waves in the tropical Pacific Ocean based on sea surface height (SSH) and thermocline depth observations is equatorially asymmetric, which differs from the structure of the linear waves of classical theory that are often presumed to dominate the variability. The nature of this...
The impact of SST specification on low-level winds in the operational ECMWF numerical weather prediction model is investigated in the eastern tropical Pacific from comparisons of ECMWF wind stress fields with QuikSCAT satellite scatterometer observations of wind stress during the August–December cold seasons of 2000 and 2001. These two time...
Westward propagating Gaussian eddies with statistical characteristics estimated from altimeter observations but with purely random starting locations and times produce striated features in time-averaged maps of zonal velocity. The striations in these simulations have magnitudes and meridional scales comparable to those reported from time-averaged altimeter observations and model output in...
To understand the characteristics of sea surface height signatures of tropical instability waves (TIWs), a linearized model of the central Pacific Ocean was developed in which the vertical structures of the state variables are projected onto a set of orthogonal baroclinic eigenvectors. In lieu of in situ current measurements with...
Wind stress variability over the Benguela upwelling system is considered using 16 months (01 August 1999 to 29 November 2000) of satellite-derived QuikSCAT wind data. Variability is investigated using a type of artificial neural network, the self-organizing map (SOM), and a wavelet analysis. The SOM and wavelet analysis are applied...