Data · dataset · 2026
Satellite sea surface salinity observations impact on El Niño/Southern Oscillation predictions: Case studies from the NASA GOES seasonal forecast system
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has far reaching global climatic impacts and so extending useful ENSO forecasts would have great societal benefit.
Description
However, one key variable that has yet to be fully exploited within coupled forecast systems is accurate estimation of near-surface ocean salinity. Satellite sea surface salinity (SSS), combined with temperature, help to improve the estimates of ocean density changes and associated near-surface mixing.
For the first time, we assess the impact of satellite SSS observations for improving near-surface dynamics within ocean reanalyses and how these initializations impact dynamical ENSO forecasts using NASA's coupled forecast system (GEOS-S2S-2). For all initialization experiments, all available sea level and in situ temperature and salinity observations are assimilated. Separate observing system experiments additionally assimilate Aquarius, SMAP, SMOS, and these data sets combined.
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We highlight the impact of satellite SSS on ocean reanalyses by comparing experiments with and without the application of SSS assimilation. Next, we compare case studies of coupled forecasts for the big 2015 El Nino, the 2017 La Nina, and the weak El Nino in 2018 that are initialized from GEOS-S2S-2 spring reanalyses that assimilate and withhold along-track SSS. For each of these ENSO-event case studies, assimilation of satellite SSS improves the forecast validation with respect to observed NINO3.4 anomalies (or at least reduces the forecast uncertainty).
Satellite SSS assimilation improved characterization of the mixed layer depth leading to more accurate coupled air/sea interaction and better forecasts. These results further underline the value of satellite SSS assimilation into operational forecast systems.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d71j9f0r ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/satellite-sea-surface-salinity-observations-impact-on-… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=b3d0998d-5d44-448f-9a4f-99aceebee… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
Provenance · 1 source records, 7 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | b3d0998d-5d44-448f-9a4f-99aceebeee59 | 12 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |