2019 Arctic Saildrone field campaign: measurements of sea surface salinity and temperature for validation of satellite retrievals

Chelle L Gentemann, Farallon Institute, Petaluma, United States, Peter J Minnett, University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, Department of Ocean Sciences, Miami, United States, Michael Steele, Univ Washington, Seattle, United States, Jorge Vazquez, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States, Wenquing Tang, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States, Jacob Hoyer, Danish Meteorological Institute, National Centre for Climate Research, København Ø, Denmark, Sotirios Skarpalezos, Danish Meteorological Institute, København Ø, Denmark, Chidong Zhang, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, United States, Dongxiao Zhang, CICOES/University of Washington and NOAA/PMEL, Seattle, United States and Richard Jenkins, Saildrone Inc., Alameda, United States
Abstract:
In 2019 six Saildrones, autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), completed a field campaign in the Arctic Ocean, collecting in situ measurements in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, focused on sampling the marginal ice zone and regions with strong Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) gradients. Our ability to access and observe the Arctic region has changed dramatically in recent years, owing to extreme seasonal sea ice melt-back and other climate-related impacts. In fact, this is now one of the most exciting areas of the world to study SST and SSS, in order to understand a variety of phenomena including heat exchange in the coupled air-sea system. However, satellite products in this region are presently very poorly validated, and are generally tuned to lower latitude in situ observations. These new in situ measurements, in concert with the advantages that come from multiple passes of polar-orbiting satellites at high latitudes, provide an opportunity to improve uncertainty estimates of SST and SSS in these challenging environments and improve our understanding of co-variability in SST and SSS in Arctic frontal regions.
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