A formalism recently developed for determining the effects of sampling errors on objectively smoothed fields constructed from an irregularly sampled dataset is applied to investigate the relative merits of single and multiple satellite altimeter missions. For small smoothing parameters, the expected squared error of smoothed fields of sea surface height...
The circulation of the southwestern Atlantic Ocean is dominated by the Subtropical Gyre
and the confluence of the Brazil and Malvinas currents. Observations indicate that the latitude
of this confluence changes seasonally, lying farther north during the austral winter than during
the summer. This phenomenon has important consequences for the...
High-resolution mesoscale model sea surface temperature (SST) analyses and surface wind stress forecasts off the U.S. West Coast are analyzed on monthly time scales for robust signatures of air–sea interaction as the surface winds encounter ocean surface features such as SST fronts, filaments, and eddies. This interaction is manifest by...
Global 1° × 1° climatologies of the first baroclinic gravity-wave phase speed c¹ and the Rossby radius of deformation λ1 are computed from climatological average temperature and salinity profiles. These new atlases are compared with previously published 5° × 5° coarse resolution maps of λ₁ for the Northern Hemisphere and...
Three mechanisms for self-induced Ekman pumping in the interiors of mesoscale ocean eddies are investigated.
The first arises from the surface stress that occurs because of differences between surface wind and
ocean velocities, resulting in Ekman upwelling and downwelling in the cores of anticyclones and cyclones,
respectively. The second mechanism...
The variability of sea level and surface geostrophic currents in the Southern Ocean is investigated from the first 26 months of unclassified Geosat altimeter data (November 1986 to December 1988). Because of problems unique to Geosat, it has been necessary to develop new techniques for analyzing the height data. These...
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...
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...
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...