Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products
Coastal upwelling regions are one of the most dynamic areas of the world’s oceans. The California and Baja California Coasts are impacted by both coastal upwelling and the California Current, leading to frontal activity that is captured by gradients in both Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surf...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/2/484 |
| _version_ | 1827622267642707968 |
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| author | Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo Marisol García-Reyes José Gómez-Valdés |
| author_facet | Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo Marisol García-Reyes José Gómez-Valdés |
| author_sort | Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Coastal upwelling regions are one of the most dynamic areas of the world’s oceans. The California and Baja California Coasts are impacted by both coastal upwelling and the California Current, leading to frontal activity that is captured by gradients in both Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surface Salinity (SSS). Satellite data are a great source of spatial data to study fronts. However, biases near coastal areas and coarse resolutions can impair its usefulness in upwelling areas. In this work gradients in SST from NASA Multi-Scale Ultra-High Resolution (MUR) and in two SSS products derived from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) NASA mission are compared directly with gradients derived from the Saildrone uncrewed vehicles to validate the gradients as well as to assess their ability to detect known frontal features. The three remotely sensed data sets (MURSST/JPL, SMAP SSS/RSS, SMAP SSS) were co-located with the Saildrone data prior to the calculation of the gradients. Wavelet analysis is used to determine how well the satellite derived SST and SSS products are reproducing the Saildrone derived gradients. Overall results indicate the remote sensing products are reproducing features of known areas of coastal upwelling. Differences between the SST and SSS gradients are mainly associated with the limitations of the microwave derived SSS coverage near land and its reduced spatial resolution. The results are promising for using remote sensing data sets to monitor frontal structure along the California Coast and the application to long term changes in coastal upwelling and dynamics. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T11:19:08Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-63109665132d49e790fa06d9dbc6369f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-4292 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T11:19:08Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj.art-63109665132d49e790fa06d9dbc6369f2023-12-01T00:22:21ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922023-01-0115248410.3390/rs15020484Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived ProductsJorge Vazquez-Cuervo0Marisol García-Reyes1José Gómez-Valdés2Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USAFarallon Institute, Petaluma, CA 94952, USAPhysical Oceanography Department, Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education at Ensenada, Ensenada 22860, Baja California, MexicoCoastal upwelling regions are one of the most dynamic areas of the world’s oceans. The California and Baja California Coasts are impacted by both coastal upwelling and the California Current, leading to frontal activity that is captured by gradients in both Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surface Salinity (SSS). Satellite data are a great source of spatial data to study fronts. However, biases near coastal areas and coarse resolutions can impair its usefulness in upwelling areas. In this work gradients in SST from NASA Multi-Scale Ultra-High Resolution (MUR) and in two SSS products derived from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) NASA mission are compared directly with gradients derived from the Saildrone uncrewed vehicles to validate the gradients as well as to assess their ability to detect known frontal features. The three remotely sensed data sets (MURSST/JPL, SMAP SSS/RSS, SMAP SSS) were co-located with the Saildrone data prior to the calculation of the gradients. Wavelet analysis is used to determine how well the satellite derived SST and SSS products are reproducing the Saildrone derived gradients. Overall results indicate the remote sensing products are reproducing features of known areas of coastal upwelling. Differences between the SST and SSS gradients are mainly associated with the limitations of the microwave derived SSS coverage near land and its reduced spatial resolution. The results are promising for using remote sensing data sets to monitor frontal structure along the California Coast and the application to long term changes in coastal upwelling and dynamics.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/2/484Sea Surface SalinitySea Surface Temperaturefrontsgradientswavelets |
| spellingShingle | Jorge Vazquez-Cuervo Marisol García-Reyes José Gómez-Valdés Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products Remote Sensing Sea Surface Salinity Sea Surface Temperature fronts gradients wavelets |
| title | Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products |
| title_full | Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products |
| title_fullStr | Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products |
| title_full_unstemmed | Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products |
| title_short | Identification of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Surface Salinity Fronts along the California Coast: Application Using Saildrone and Satellite Derived Products |
| title_sort | identification of sea surface temperature and sea surface salinity fronts along the california coast application using saildrone and satellite derived products |
| topic | Sea Surface Salinity Sea Surface Temperature fronts gradients wavelets |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/2/484 |
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