Abstract's details

CFOSAT SWIM wave measurements against Southern Ocean buoys

Salman Khan (CSIRO, Australia)

Event: 2022 CFOSAT Science Team Meeting

Session: SWIM product assessment

Presentation type: Type Forum only

Contribution: PDF file

Abstract:

CFOSAT SWIM wave measurements against Southern Ocean buoys
In this work, we aim to present the comparison of CFOSAT SWIM wave spectra against the available Southern Ocean (SO) wave buoy measurements. Because the SO is highly undersampled, while being important for understanding the global climate, CFOSAT wave spectra measurements in the SO will give insights into the wave climate of the SO, mean direction of propagation of SO swell, wave generation at long fetches, and other variations in the SO wave climate. The first step, however, will involve detailed comparisons against SO buoys both in terms of wave statistics as well as spectral measurements where available. If ample record lengths are available, we may also compare the wave climate between the buoys and CFOSAT SWIM observations.

As outlined in Young and Fontaine (2020), there are a limited number of locations where in-situ measurements of wave spectra exist in the Southern Ocean. The longest duration of these measurements is ~4 years. Only three of these locations have overlap with the time since CFOSAT has been operating. One of the locations, Southern Ocean Flux Station (SOFS; 1400E, 470S), is still operational. The second one near Campbell Island (1690E, 530S) south of New Zealand also has wave measurements in three separate deployments but is no more operational. A third directional wave buoy, funded by the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and deployed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, is located in the East of Tasmania (148.58E, 42.87S) close to Maria Island and is likely suitable for comparisons with CFOSAT data. Together wave observations from these three wave buoys will be compared with CFOSAT directional spectra for potential cal/val opportunities and for comparing the wave climate between buoy observations and that measured by CFOSAT.

Previously, a subset of these comparisons were performed using the older processing of SWIM spectra (with the along track noise component not fully suppressed) and a few months of buoy data. The latest work will be presented on the updated SWIM processing and all available in-situ measurements.

Co-authors will be added at a later date as several are away due to school holidays.

Young, I. R., Fontaine, E., Liu, Q., & Babanin, A. V. (2020). The Wave Climate of the Southern Ocean, Journal of Physical Oceanography, 50(5), 1417-1433.

 
Salman Khan
CSIRO
Australia
salmansaeed.khan@csiro.au