Intercomparison of Various Surface Latent Heat Flux Fields

Abstract

The Japanese Ocean Flux Data Sets with use of Remote Sensing Observations (J-OFURO) latent heat flux field is compared with the Hamburg Ocean?Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS), the Goddard Satellite-Based Surface Turbulent Fluxes (GSSTF), ECMWF, NCEP?NCAR reanalysis (NCEP1), and da Silva et al.'s fields. All products qualitatively reveal a similar pattern in the average fields. Although the latent heat fluxes of J-OFURO and GSSTF are quite similar, they are larger than those of HOAPS in the tropical regions. The difference between J-OFURO and the da Silva data is large, and the temporal correlation is extremely low in the Southern Hemisphere. This suggests that the da Silva product hardly reproduces accurate variability in the data-sparse regions. Also the time correlation between J-OFURO and ECMWF or NCEP1 is considerably lower in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere. The ECMWF and NCEP1 fields may be affected by the lack of ship observations there. The present study also compares meridional profiles of the zonal average. The HOAPS and da Silva products significantly underestimate these profiles in the tropical regions compared with the other products. On the other hand, the ECMWF product overestimates these profiles in the equatorial regions.