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A comparative assessment of coastal mean dynamic topography in N orway by geodetic and ocean approaches
Author(s) -
Ophaug Vegard,
Breili Kristian,
Gerlach Christian
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: oceans
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9291
pISSN - 2169-9275
DOI - 10.1002/2015jc011145
Subject(s) - geoid , tide gauge , geodetic datum , geodesy , altimeter , geology , ocean surface topography , satellite altimetry , sea surface height , ocean current , sea level , remote sensing , climatology , oceanography , geophysics , measured depth
The ocean's mean dynamic topography (MDT) is the surface representation of ocean circulation. It may be determined by the ocean approach, using numerical ocean circulation models, or by the geodetic approach, where MDT is the height of the mean sea surface (MSS), or mean sea level (MSL), above the geoid. Using new geoid models, geodetic MDT profiles based on tide gauges, dedicated coastal altimetry products, and conventional altimetry are compared with six ocean MDT estimates independent of geodetic data. Emphasis is put on the determination of high‐resolution geoid models, combining ESA's fifth release (R5) of GOCE satellite‐only global gravity models (GGMs) with a regional geoid model for Norway by a filtering technique. Differences between MDT profiles along the Norwegian coast together with Taylor diagrams confirm that geodetic and ocean MDTs agree on the ∼3–7 cm level at the tide gauges, and on the ∼5–11 cm level at the altimetry sites. Some geodetic MDTs correlate more with the best‐performing ocean MDT than do other ocean MDTs, suggesting a convergence of the methods. While the GOCE R5 geoids are shown to be more accurate over land, they do not necessarily show the best agreement over the ocean. Pointwise monomission altimetry products give results comparable with the multimission DTU13MSS grid on the ∼5 cm level. However, dedicated coastal altimetry products generally do not offer an improvement over conventional altimetry along the Norwegian coast.