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Consistency of Aquarius sea surface salinity with Argo products on various spatial and temporal scales
Author(s) -
Lee Tong
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2016gl068822
Subject(s) - argo , environmental science , salinity , climatology , satellite , sss* , latitude , sea surface temperature , consistency (knowledge bases) , temporal scales , temperature salinity diagrams , meteorology , geology , oceanography , geography , geodesy , computer science , ecology , artificial intelligence , engineering , biology , aerospace engineering
Abstract Understanding the accuracies of satellite‐derived sea surface salinity measurements in depicting temporal changes and their dependence on spatiotemporal scales is important to applications, capability assessment, and future satellite mission design. This study quantifies the consistency between Aquarius Version 4 monthly gridded sea surface salinity (SSS) with two Argo‐based monthly gridded near‐surface salinity products for describing temporal changes on 1° × 1°, 3° × 3°, and 10° × 10° scales. Globally averaged standard deviation values for Aquarius‐Argo salinity differences on these three spatial scales are 0.16, 0.14, and 0.09 practical salinity unit (psu), compared to those between the two Argo products of 0.10, 0.09, and 0.04 psu. The consistency between Aquarius and Argo is similar to that between the two Argo products in the tropics for seasonal signals, and in the tropics and midlatitudes for nonseasonal signals. Therefore, the uncertainties of Argo products for various scales need to be considered in evaluating satellite SSS. Innovative satellite technologies are needed to improve high‐latitude satellite SSS measurements.