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Ocean Vector Wind Working Group meeting, October 7, 2013, Boulder. N. Maximenko : Satellite ocean surface currents and winds. Surface currents are not well measured. 3659 active Argo floats (3659 / 10 days * 10 hours ≈ 152 continuous sites).
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Ocean Vector Wind Working Group meeting, October 7, 2013, Boulder N. Maximenko: Satellite ocean surface currents and winds Surface currents are not well measured 3659 active Argo floats (3659 / 10 days * 10 hours ≈ 152 continuous sites) 1,051 active drifters (approx. 1 drifter per 4x4 degree bin; probably 30-50% are undrogued)
Ocean Vector Wind Working Group meeting, October 7, 2013, Boulder N. Maximenko: Satellite ocean surface currents and winds Surface currents are not well modeled Why even most reputable models do not care about discrepancy with observations? (Jim Potemra, 5th Int. Marine Debris Conference, 2011)
Ocean Vector Wind Working Group meeting, October 7, 2013, Boulder N. Maximenko: Satellite ocean surface currents and winds Global circulation can be modeled without knowing surface currents Ekman balance: =(1/ρ)∙τ Vertically integrated Ekman transport: I.e. forcing of subsurface ocean is not sensitive to K(z) or other mechanisms of momentum transfer between atmosphere and ocean (e.g. radiation, injection, etc.) (Note that equations allow wind-induced surface currents to exceed surface wind.) Having surface currents and winds measured by the same satellite would be a step toward understanding mechanical interaction in the coupled system. (The coupling starts with the correspondence between winds in the atmospheric boundary layer and currents in the ocean Ekman layer and leads to coupling in vertical motions with implications to patterns of E&P, SSS, chlorophyll, etc.)
Effect of near-shore wind extends into central oceans Ocean Vector Wind Working Group meeting, October 7, 2013, Boulder N. Maximenko: Satellite ocean surface currents and winds Chelton et al. 2004, Science Qiu et al. 1997, JPO HLC HLCC Xie et al. 2001, Science NEC Persistent striations in long-term mean high-pass filtered dynamic ocean topography (Maximenko et al., 2008) Generation of beta-plume ← Rossby waves Curl > 0 Cyclonic eddies Anticyclonic eddies Yoshida et al. 2010, JGR High-resolution of wind, including near-shore areas, is important to study mesoscale ocean currents.
