Type: Journal Article
Venue: Geophysical Research Letters
Resource Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50549/abstract
Knowledge of the relationship between bottom pressure pb and sea level ζ is important for understanding ocean circulation and climate. We use recent Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Release-05 data along with altimetry to investigate the relationship between ζ and pb over long periods (>1 year) and large scales (>750 km). Elevated pb signals are observed over deep extratropical regions (e.g., Southern Ocean basins) and shallow or semi-enclosed areas (e.g., Indonesian and Nordic seas). In these places, considerable ζ variance is explained by pb variance. Correlation between ζ and pb is significant in many regions, including instances of significant negative correlation suggestive of active baroclinic processes. Results exemplify the good quality of GRACE Release-05 data and demonstrate that contemporary regional ζ variability cannot always be interpreted in terms of steric changes alone.
Geophysical Research Letters: Volume 40, Issue 12, pages 3106–3110, 28 June 2013.
DOI: 10.1002/grl.50549.
This article was also highlighted as a featured article on GRL's home page as the “First Look at Interannual Regional OBP Variations from GRACE Release-05”. This is the first observation-based investigation of the relationship between ocean bottom pressure and sea level over the global ocean on interannual time scales.
Key Points
- We give first look at interannual regional OBP variations from GRACE Release-05
- OBP explains much of SL variance in extratropical basins and semi-enclosed seas