A Twenty-Year Dynamical Oceanic Climatology: 1994-2013. Part 1: Active Scalar Fields: Temperature, Salinity, Dynamic Topography, Mixed-Layer Depth, Bottom Pressure.

Abstract

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) was created to produce the first climatologically useful picture of the ocean circulation and its low-frequency variability. This goal is addressed here from the state estimate of the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) consortium, which uses almost all of the data obtained during WOCE and its aftermath along with the much improved general circulation modeling capabilities. A dynamically and data-consistent, time-evolving, state estimate is available depicting the ocean and its ice-cover over a 23-year time-span, globally, from the sea surface to the sea floor. The resulting time-dependent 20-year long climatology includes temperature, salinity, surface elevation, bottom pressure, sea-ice, and three components of velocity. Accompanying the state estimate are modified estimates of meteorological forcing-fields, ocean interior mixing coefficients, and initial conditions. Much spatial structure persists through the two decade averaging. Results here are primarily pictorial in nature, intended to give the wider community a sense of what is now available and useful and where more detailed analysis would be fruitful. An extended reference list is included.