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Prospective Salinity-centric Process Study. Aquarius launch May 2010 Meeting of remnants of Salinity WG at WHOI last week to discuss activities leading up to launch Discussion of a process study in the 2011-2013 as component of cal/val activity
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Prospective Salinity-centric Process Study • Aquarius launch May 2010 • Meeting of remnants of Salinity WG at WHOI last week to discuss activities leading up to launch • Discussion of a process study in the 2011-2013 as component of cal/val activity • NASA commitment to support such a program (ROSES 2008 - Ocean Salinity Science Team solicitation)
Potential location for a process study Objectives: What processes maintain the salinity maximum? Where does the excess salt go? What processes give rise to temporal variability? What is the larger impact on the shallow overturning circulation? Location advantages: >Low >Low precip 1D phys. >Modest eddy activity >Source of water for northern tropical thermocline >Stable S for Cal-Val > Warm (better for Aquarius) > Leverages other resources: 24 N section, Pirata Array, ESTOC time series (Canary Islands) > Logistically tractable
Experimental Concept • Envision this as first of multiple field experiments in different regimes: • Low / high precip • Low / high • Some incentive to defer looking at high precip regime until launch of GPM (~2013) • Still in discussion phase, not at the stage where they expect PSMI to evaluate the design • Meeting in early 2009 to define more detailed scientific and technical plans
Recommendations/Best Practices • Come up with an acronym • Continue to keep PSMI informed of progress on experimental design • More clearly articulate those processes that will be quantitatively characterized in the study • Evaluate how those processes are represented in current ocean climate models and re-analysis systems.