Publication Date:
2022-10-26
Description:
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Earth and Space Science, 6(7), (2019): 1220-1233, doi:10.1029/2018EA000436.
Description:
Ocean evaporative fluxes are a critical component of the Earth's energy and water cycle, but their estimation remains uncertain. Near‐surface humidity is a required input to bulk flux algorithms that relate mean surface values to the turbulent fluxes. Several satellite‐derived turbulent flux products have been developed over the last decade that utilize passive microwave imager observations to estimate the surface humidity. It is known, however, that these estimates tend to diverge from one another and from in situ observations. Analysis of current state‐of‐the‐art satellite estimates provided herein reveals that regional‐scale biases in these products remain significant. Investigations reveal a link between the spatial coherency of the observed biases to atmospheric dynamical controls of water vapor vertical stratification, cloud liquid water, and sea surface temperature. This information is used to develop a simple state‐dependent bias correction that results in more consistent ocean surface humidity estimates. A principal conclusion is that further improvements to ocean near‐surface humidity estimation using microwave radiometers requires incorporation of prior information on water vapor stratification and sea surface temperature.
Description:
Data products used in this study are made publicly available via multiple repositories hosted by individual data product producers. JOFUROv2 and JOFUROv3 data are available online (https://j‐ofuro.scc.u‐tokai.ac.jp/en/). IFREMERv4 and NOCS surface data are available through the OceanHeatFlux project (https://www.ifremer.fr/oceanheatflux/Data). GSSTFv3 (doi:10.5067/MEASURES/GSSTF/DATA301) and MERRA‐2 data are obtained from the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center. HOAPSv3.2 data are available from Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/HOAPS/V001). SEAFLUXv2 data are accessed through the National Centers for Environmental Information (http://doi.org/10.7289/V59K4885). Daily surface observations were provided by David Berry and Elizabeth Kent. This work is supported under the NASA Physical Oceanography Program Grant NNX14AK48A.
Keywords:
Humidity
;
Passive microwave
;
Ocean
;
Turbulent fluxes
;
Evaporation
;
Remote sensing
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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