Initialization of Seasonal Forecasts Assimilating Sea Level and Temperature Observations

Abstract

In this paper, the combined assimilation of satellite observed sea level anomalies and in situ temperature data into a global ocean model, which is used to initialize a coupled ocean?atmosphere forecast system, is described. The altimeter data are first used to create synthetic temperature observations, which are then combined with the directly observed temperature profiles in an optimum interpolation scheme. In addition to temperature, salinity is corrected based on a preservation of the model's local temperature?salinity relationship. Coupled forecasts with a lead time of up to 6 months are initialized from the ocean analyses and the impact of the data assimilation on both the ocean analysis and the coupled forecasts is investigated. It is shown that forecasts of sea surface temperature anomalies in the Niño-3 area can be improved by initializing the coupled forecast model with the ocean analysis in which temperature and altimeter data are assimilated in combination. The results further imply that a good simulation of the salinity field is required to make optimum use of the altimeter data.