An Ocean Data Assimilation System in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean

The development and application of a regional ocean data assimilation system are among the aims of the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment. The ocean data assimilation system in the regions including the Indian and West Pacific oceans is an endeavor motivated by this goal. In this study, we describe the system in detail. Moreover, the reanalysis in the joint area of Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the western Pacific Ocean （hereafter AIPOcean） constructed using multi-year model integration with data assimilation is used to test the performance of this system. The ocean model is an eddy-resolving, hybrid coordinate ocean model. Various types of observations including in-situ temperature and salinity profiles （mechanical bathythermograph, expendable bathythermograph, Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography, Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array, conductivity-temperature-depth, station data）, remotely-sensed sea surface temperature, and altimetry sea level anomalies, are assimilated into the reanalysis via the ensemble optimal interpolation method. An ensemble of model states sampled from a long-term integration is allowed to change with season, rather than remaining stationary. The estimated background error covariance matrix may reasonably reflect the seasonality and anisotropy. We evaluate the performance of AIPOcean during the period 1993-2006 by comparisons with independent observations, and some reanalysis products. We show that AIPOcean reduces the errors of subsurface temperature and salinity, and reproduces mesoscale eddies. In contrast to ECCO and SODA products, AIPOcean captures the interannual variability and linear trend of sea level anomalies very well. AIPOcean also shows a good consistency with tide gauges.

Evaluation of Ocean Data Assimilation in CAS-ESM-C:Constraining the SST Field

A weakly coupled assimilation system, in which SST observations are assimilated into a coupled climate model （CAS- ESM-C） through an ensemble optimal interpolation scheme, was established. This system is a useful tool for historical climate simulation, showing substantial advantages, including maintaining the atmospheric feedback, and keeping the oceanic tields from drifting far away from the observation, among others. During the coupled model integration, the bias of both surface and subsurface oceanic fields in the analysis can be reduced compared to unassimilated fields. Based on 30 model years of ot.tput fiom the system, the climatology and imerannual variability of the climate system were evaluated. The results showed that the system can reasonably reproduce the climatological global precipitation and SLP, bul it still sutters from the double ITCZ problem. Besides, the ENSO footprint, which is revealed by ENSO-related surface air temperature, geopotential height and precipitation during El Nifio evolution, is basically reproduced by the system. The system can also simulate the observed SST-rainfall relationships well on both interannual and intraseasonal timescales in the western North Pacific region, in which atmospheric feedback is crucial for climate simulation.

The impact of ocean data assimilation on seasonal predictions based on the National Climate Center climate system model

An ensemble optimal interpolation(EnOI)data assimilation method is applied in the BCCCSM1.1 to investigate the impact of ocean data assimilations on seasonal forecasts in an idealized twin experiment framework.Pseudoobservations of sea surface temperature(SST),sea surface height(SSH),sea surface salinity(SSS),temperature and salinity(T/S)profiles were first generated in a free model run.Then,a series of sensitivity tests initialized with predefined bias were conducted for a one-year period;this involved a free run(CTR)and seven assimilation runs.These tests allowed us to check the analysis field accuracy against the"truth".As expected,data assimilation improved all investigated quantities;the joint assimilation of all variables gave more improved results than assimilating them separately.One-year predictions initialized from the seven runs and CTR were then conducted and compared.The forecasts initialized from joint assimilation of surface data produced comparable SST root mean square errors to that from assimilation of T/S profiles,but the assimilation of T/S profiles is crucial to reduce subsurface deficiencies.The ocean surface currents in the tropics were better predicted when initial conditions produced by assimilating T/S profiles,while surface data assimilation became more important at higher latitudes,particularly near the western boundary currents.The predictions of ocean heat content and mixed layer depth are significantly improved initialized from the joint assimilation of all the variables.Finally,a central Pacific El Ni?o was well predicted from the joint assimilation of surface data,indicating the importance of joint assimilation of SST,SSH,and SSS for ENSO predictions.

A New Global Four-Dimensional Variational Ocean Data Assimilation System and Its Application

A four-dimensional variational data assimilation （4DVar） system of the LASG/IAP Climate Ocean Model, version 1.0 （LICOM1.0）, named LICOM-3DVM, has been developed using the three-dimensional variational data assimilation of mapped observation （3DVM）, a 4DVar method newly proposed in the past two years. Two experiments with 12-year model integrations were designed to validate it. One is the assimilation run, called ASSM, which incorporated the analyzed weekly sea surface temperature （SST） fields from Reynolds and Smith （OISST） between 1990 and 2001 once a week by the LICOM-3DVM. The other is the control run without any assimilation, named CTL. ASSM shows that the simulated temperatures of the upper ocean （above 50 meters）, especially the SST of equatorial Pacific, coincide with the Tropic Atmosphere Ocean （TAO） mooring data, the World Ocean Atlas 2001 （WOA01） data and the Met Office Hadley Centre＇s sea ice and sea surface temperature （HadISST） data. It decreased the cold bias existing in CTL in the eastern Pacific and produced a Nifio index that agrees with observation well. The validation results suggest that the LICOM-3DVM is able to effectively adjust the model results of the ocean temperature, although it＇s hard to correct the subsurface results and it even makes them worse in some areas due to the incorporation of only surface data. Future development of the LICOM-3DVM is to include subsurface in situ observations and satellite observations to further improve model simulations.

Application of a Recursive Filter to a Three-Dimensional Variational Ocean Data Assimilation System

In order to improve the efficiency of the Ocean Variational Assimilation System （OVALS）, which has been widely used in various applications, an improved OVALS （OVALS2） is developed based on the recursive filter （RF） algorithm. The first advantage of OVALS2 is that memory storage can be substantially reduced in practice because it implicitly computes the background error covariance matrix; the second advantage is that there is no inversion of the background error covariance by preconditioning the control variable. For comparing the effectiveness between OVALS2 and OVALS, a set of experiments was implemented by assimilating expendable bathythermograph （XBT） and ARGO data into the Tropical Pacific circulation model. The results show that the efficiency of OVALS2 is much higher than that of OVALS. The computational time and the computer storage in the assimilation process were reduced by 83% and 77%, respectively. Additionally, the corresponding results produced by the RF are almost as good as those obtained by OVALS. These results prove that OVALS2 is suitable for operational numerical oceanic forecasting.

IMPROVEMENT OF OCEAN DATA ASSIMILATION SYSTEM AND CLIMATE PREDICTION BY ASSIMILATING ARGO DATA

The Argo(Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography) data from 1998 to 2003 were used in the Beijing Climate Center-Global Ocean Data Assimilation System(BCC-GODAS). The results show that the utilization of Argo global ocean data in BCC-GODAS brings about remarkable improvements in assimilation effects. The assimilated sea surface temperature(SST) of BCC-GODAS can well represent the climatological states of observational data. Comparison experiments based on a global coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model(AOCGM) were conducted for exploring the roles of ocean data assimilation system with or without Argo data in improving the climate predictability of rainfall in boreal summer. Firstly, the global ocean data assimilation system BCC-GODAS was used to obtain ocean assimilation data under the conditions with or without Argo data. Then, the global coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model(AOCGM) was utilized to do hindcast experiments with the two sets of the assimilation data as initial oceanic fields. The simulated results demonstrate that the seasonal predictability of rainfall in boreal summer, particularly in China, increases greatly when initial oceanic conditions with Argo data are utilized. The distribution of summer rainfall in China hindcast by the AOGCM under the condition when Argo data are used is more in accordance with observation than that when no Agro data are used. The area of positive correlation between hindcast and observation enlarges and the hindcast skill of rainfall over China in summer improves significantly when Argo data are used.

Simulated Indonesian Throughflow in Makassar Strait across the SODA3 products

The Indonesian Throughflow(ITF), which connects the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans, plays important roles in the inter-ocean water exchange and regional or even global climate variability. The Makassar Strait is the main inflow passage of the ITF, carrying about 77% of the total ITF volume transport. In this study, we analyze the simulated ITF in the Makassar Strait in the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation version 3(SODA3) datasets. A total of nine ensemble members of the SODA3 datasets, of which are driven by different surface forcings and bulk formulas, and with or without data assimilation, are used in this study. The annual mean water transports(i.e.,volume, heat and freshwater) are related to the combination of surface forcing and bulk formula, as well as whether data assimilation is employed. The phases of the seasonal and interannual variability in water transports cross the Makassar Strait, are basically consistent with each other among the SODA3 ensemble members. The interannual variability in Makassar Strait volume and heat transports are significantly correlated with El Ni?oSouthern Oscillation(ENSO) at time lags of-6 to 7 months. There is no statistically significant correlation between the freshwater transport and the ENSO. The Makassar Strait water transports are not significantly correlated with the Indian Ocean Dipole(IOD), which may attribute to model deficiency in simulating the propagation of semiannual Kelvin waves from the Indian Ocean to the Makassar Strait.

Numerical study of current fields near the Changjiang Estuary and impact of Quick-EnKF assimilation

A 30-d current numerical simulation is running for the Yangshan Port,the Changjiang Estuary,the Hangzhou Bay and their adjacent seas using a finite volume coastal ocean model （FVCOM）,with Changjiang River runoff and wind effect being considered.At the open boundary,this model is driven by the water level obtained from prediction including eight main partial tides.After the harmonic analysis,the cotidal chart and the iso-amplitude line as well as the current ellipse distribution map are displayed to illustrate the propagation property of a tidal wave.Horizontal velocity of both the U and V components coincides with the actual measurement,which shows that the model result is credible to describe the hydrodynamic pattern in this sea area.On this basis,real-time current data from high-frequency radar is assimilated with the implementation of quick ensemble Kalman filter,which takes the variation tendency of the state vector to compute the analysis field,instead of integrating the field for N （the number of ensemble） times as it used to in the standard EnKF,aiming at raising the efficiency of computation,reducing the error of prediction and at the same time,improving the forecast effect.

Abyssal Circulation in the Philippine Sea

The abyssal circulation in the Philippine Sea(PS)is investigated,with outputs from the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation version 2.2.4(SODA224).The deep-water currents in SODA224 are carefully evaluated,with sparse in situ observations in the North Pacific Ocean.In the upper deep layer(20003000 m)of the PS,a strong westward current,which originates from the Northeast Pacific Basin and enters the PS through the Yap-Mariana Junction,exists along 1114 N.This strong westward current bifurcates into two western boundary currents off the Philippines.The northward-flowing current flows out of the PS around 2021 N,whereas the southward-flowing current transports deep water from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere.In the lower deep layer(30004500 m),the inflow water first flows northward to the east of the Western Mariana Basin and then turns westward at approximately 18 N.The inflow water mainly enters the Philippine Basin(PB),with a small part turning southward to constitute a weak cyclonic circulation.The water entering the PB mainly merges into a strong southward western boundary current in the south-ern PB.In the bottom layer(below 4500 m),both the northeast and northwest PB show single cyclonic gyres,whereas the south PB shows a single anticyclonic gyre.Moreover,comparisons with the observations indicate the possible existence of a cyclonic sense of circulation over the Philippine Trench.The current study provides the implications for future observations,which are needed to fur-ther investigate the temporospatial variations of the abyssal circulation in the PS on multiple scales.