A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing
This paper investigates the uncertainties related to atmospheric fields from reanalysis products used in forcing ocean models. Four reanalysis products, namely from 1) the interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim), 2) version 2 of the Common Reference Ocean–Ice Experiments (CORE2), 3) the 25-Year Japa...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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American Meteorological Society
2013
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79775 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3925-6161 |
| _version_ | 1811088492031115264 |
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| author | Chaudhuri, Ayan H. Ponte, Rui M. Forget, Gael Heimbach, Patrick |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Chaudhuri, Ayan H. Ponte, Rui M. Forget, Gael Heimbach, Patrick |
| author_sort | Chaudhuri, Ayan H. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | This paper investigates the uncertainties related to atmospheric fields from reanalysis products used in forcing ocean models. Four reanalysis products, namely from 1) the interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim), 2) version 2 of the Common Reference Ocean–Ice Experiments (CORE2), 3) the 25-Year Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA-25), and 4) NCEP–NCAR, are evaluated against satellite-derived observations for eight different fields (zonal and meridional winds, precipitation, specific humidity, continental discharge, surface air temperature, and downwelling longwave and shortwave radiation fluxes). No single product is found to agree better in all fields with satellite-derived observations. Reanalysis products are mostly comparable to each other because of their similar physical assumptions and assimilation of common observations. Adjusted atmospheric fields from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) optimizations are also in agreement with other reanalysis products. Time-mean and time-variable errors are estimated separately and mapped globally in space, based on 14-day average fields to focus on monthly to interannual periods. Time-variable errors are larger in comparison to the signal than time-mean errors for most fields, thus justifying the need to separate them for studying uncertainties as well as formulating optimization procedures. Precipitation and wind stress fields show significant time-mean and time-variable errors whereas downwelling radiation, air temperature, and humidity fields show small time-mean errors but large time-variable errors, particularly in the tropics. Uncertainties based on evaluating multiple products presented here are considerably larger than uncertainties based on single product pairs. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:03:00Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/79775 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:03:00Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | American Meteorological Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/797752022-09-28T17:57:19Z A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing Chaudhuri, Ayan H. Ponte, Rui M. Forget, Gael Heimbach, Patrick Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Forget, Gael Heimbach, Patrick This paper investigates the uncertainties related to atmospheric fields from reanalysis products used in forcing ocean models. Four reanalysis products, namely from 1) the interim ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim), 2) version 2 of the Common Reference Ocean–Ice Experiments (CORE2), 3) the 25-Year Japanese Reanalysis Project (JRA-25), and 4) NCEP–NCAR, are evaluated against satellite-derived observations for eight different fields (zonal and meridional winds, precipitation, specific humidity, continental discharge, surface air temperature, and downwelling longwave and shortwave radiation fluxes). No single product is found to agree better in all fields with satellite-derived observations. Reanalysis products are mostly comparable to each other because of their similar physical assumptions and assimilation of common observations. Adjusted atmospheric fields from the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) optimizations are also in agreement with other reanalysis products. Time-mean and time-variable errors are estimated separately and mapped globally in space, based on 14-day average fields to focus on monthly to interannual periods. Time-variable errors are larger in comparison to the signal than time-mean errors for most fields, thus justifying the need to separate them for studying uncertainties as well as formulating optimization procedures. Precipitation and wind stress fields show significant time-mean and time-variable errors whereas downwelling radiation, air temperature, and humidity fields show small time-mean errors but large time-variable errors, particularly in the tropics. Uncertainties based on evaluating multiple products presented here are considerably larger than uncertainties based on single product pairs. National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant ARC-1022733) 2013-08-05T15:48:23Z 2013-08-05T15:48:23Z 2013-01 2012-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0894-8755 1520-0442 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79775 Chaudhuri, Ayan H., Rui M. Ponte, Gael Forget, and Patrick Heimbach. “A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing.” Journal of Climate 26, no. 1 (January 2013): 153-170. © 2013 American Meteorological Society https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3925-6161 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-12-00090.1 Journal of Climate Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Meteorological Society American Meteorological Society |
| spellingShingle | Chaudhuri, Ayan H. Ponte, Rui M. Forget, Gael Heimbach, Patrick A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title | A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title_full | A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title_fullStr | A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title_short | A Comparison of Atmospheric Reanalysis Surface Products over the Ocean and Implications for Uncertainties in Air–Sea Boundary Forcing |
| title_sort | comparison of atmospheric reanalysis surface products over the ocean and implications for uncertainties in air sea boundary forcing |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/79775 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3925-6161 |
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