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Seven-Year SSM/I-Derived Global Ocean Surface Turbulent FluxesA 7.5-year (July 1987-December 1994) dataset of daily surface specific humidity and turbulent fluxes (momentum, latent heat, and sensible heat) over global oceans has been retrieved from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data and other data. It has a spatial resolution of 2.0 deg.x 2.5 deg. latitude-longitude. The retrieved surface specific humidity is generally accurate over global oceans as validated against the collocated radiosonde observations. The retrieved daily wind stresses and latent heat fluxes show useful accuracy as verified by those measured by the RV Moana Wave and IMET buoy in the western equatorial Pacific. The derived turbulent fluxes and input variables are also found to agree generally with the global distributions of annual-and seasonal-means of those based on 4-year (1990-93) comprehensive ocean-atmosphere data set (COADS) with adjustment in wind speeds and other climatological studies. The COADS has collected the most complete surface marine observations, mainly from merchant ships. However, ship measurements generally have poor accuracy, and variable spatial coverages. Significant differences between the retrieved and COADS-based are found in some areas of the tropical and southern extratropical oceans, reflecting the paucity of ship observations outside the northern extratropical oceans. Averaged over the global oceans, the retrieved wind stress is smaller but the latent heat flux is larger than those based on COADS. The former is suggested to be mainly due to overestimation of the adjusted ship-estimated wind speeds (depending on sea states), while the latter is suggested to be mainly due to overestimation of ship-measured dew point temperatures. The study suggests that the SSM/I-derived turbulent fluxes can be used for climate studies and coupled model validations.
Document ID
20000072433
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Chou, Shu-Hsien (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Shie, Chung-Lin (Science Systems and Applications, Inc. Lanham, MD United States)
Atlas, Robert M. (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD United States)
Ardizzone, Joe (General Sciences Corp. Laurel, MD United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
June 1, 2000
Subject Category
Oceanography
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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