Validation of global sea-level pressure fields calculated from Oceansat-2 scatterometer wind data using the UWPBL model

摘要

Sea level pressure fields were estimated from the Oceansat-2 scatterometer (OSCAT) wind measurements using the University of Washington Planetary Boundary Layer (UWPBL) model, and the estimations were evaluated for the year 2011. The Data Interpolating Variational Analysis (DIVA) technique was used for the generation of daily global composites from the along-track pressure field values. The sea level pressure field data were compared with in-situ pressure observations (of which there were 220 818 in total) over the global oceans. Scatterometer-derived pressure fields are in good agreement with the in-situ measurements, with a bias of 0.31hPa, a correlation coefficient of 0.918 and a standard deviation ratio of 0.398. The accuracy of the estimations shows that global pressure fields calculated using OSCAT winds are suitable for use in synoptic studies/global oceanographic studies.