PS34C:
Observing the Ocean Surface Topography at High Resolution: Opportunities and Challenges for the Future SWOT Mission II Posters

Session ID#: 84780

Session Description:
The future altimetry international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission to be launched in 2021 will make high-resolution 2D observations of sea-surface height (SSH) using SAR radar interferometry techniques at an unprecedented resolution of 15-40 km wavelength, depending on sea state conditions. These observations, with about one order of magnitude higher resolution than current altimetry products, will provide new opportunities to study the fine scale oceanic dynamics as well as internal tides and internal waves, and their role in connecting the interior of the ocean to the upper layer. The SWOT mission will be divided in two phases on different orbits. The first “fast sampling phase” is dedicated to mission calibration and science validation and will have a reduced spatial coverage but an enhanced temporal resolution (daily, and twice a day over track crossovers). The second phase (the nominal one) will map the entire earth up to 77.6° latitude, sampling a given location 2-6 times every 21 days.  This session will explore recent studies in understanding how fine scale SSH dynamics are linked to the sinks, sources and stirring of kinetic energy in the ocean, and to their related ecological and biogeochemical processes. The session encourages modeling and assimilation approaches, as well as studies of the in-situ or airborne experimental strategies to be deployed to observe these small-scale, rapidly evolving dynamics during both the fast sampling and the nominal phases.
Co-Sponsor(s):
  • IS - Ocean Observatories, Instrumentation and Sensing Technologies
  • PI - Physical-Biological Interactions
  • PL - Physical Oceanography: Mesoscale and Larger
Index Terms:

4520 Eddies and mesoscale processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4556 Sea level: variations and mean [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4560 Surface waves and tides [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
4594 Instruments and techniques [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL]
Primary Chair:  Rosemary Morrow, LEGOS CNRS/CNES/IRD/University Toulouse III, Toulouse, France
Co-chairs:  Lee-Lueng Fu, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States, J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst, Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States and Francesco d'Ovidio, LOCEAN, Paris, France
Primary Liaison:  Rosemary Morrow, LEGOS CNRS/CNES/IRD/University Toulouse III, Toulouse, France
Moderators:  J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst, Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States and Lee-Lueng Fu, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States
Student Paper Review Liaison:  Lee-Lueng Fu, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

 
Directional Wavenumber Spectrum of Internal Wave SSH Variance from Single Mooring Measurements (638657)
Weiguang Wu, MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States, Cesar B Rocha, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, United States and J. Thomas Farrar, Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst, Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole, United States
 
Directional Surface Wave Spectra from Point Measurements of Height and Slope (636943)
William J Plant, Retired, Washington, DC, United States and Mark A Donelan, University of Miami, RSMAS, Miami, FL, United States
 
Impact of tides on North and Equatorial Atlantic HYCOM simulations from 1/12° to 1/50° (646456)
Eric Chassignet, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, United States, Xiaobiao Xu, Florida State University, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Tallahassee, FL, United States and Alan J Wallcraft, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, United States
 
Sea level anomalies using altimetry, model and tide gauges along the African coasts in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic Ocean: inter-comparison and temporal variability (655531)
Isabelle Dadou1, Habib Dieng2, Fabien Leger2, Yves Morel3, Julien Jouanno4, Florent Lyard2 and Damien Allain2, (1)LEGOS, Toulouse Cedex 9, France, (2)LEGOS, Toulouse, France, (3)Laboratoire d’Etudes Géophysiques et d’Océanographie Spatiale, LEGOS – UMR 5566 CNES-CNRS-IRD-UPS, Toulouse, France, (4)Observatory Midi-Pyrenees, Toulouse, France
 
Observations of the transition scale from balanced to unbalanced motions in the eastern tropical Pacific from historical ship data (642705)
Saulo M Soares1, Prof. Sarah T Gille, PhD2, Teresa K Chereskin3, Eric Firing4, Julia M Hummon5 and Cesar B Rocha1, (1)Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, United States, (2)Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, United States, (3)SIO/UCSD, La Jolla, CA, United States, (4)University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Oceanography, Honolulu, HI, United States, (5)Univ Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, United States
 
Tropical Upper Ocean Unbalanced Motions: Their Observed Characteristics and Implication for the SWOT Mission (642104)
Bo Qiu, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States, Shuiming Chen, Univ Hawaii Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States and Patrice Klein, Cnrs/Ifremer/LOPS, Plouzané, France
 
The Ocean Mesoscale Regime of the Reduced-Gravity Quasi-Geostrophic Model (652522)
Roger M Samelson, Oregon State Univ, Corvallis, OR, United States, Dudley B Chelton Jr, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States and Michael Schlax, Oregon State University, Corvallis, United States
 
Seasonality and spatial dependence of meso- and submesoscale ocean currents from along-track altimetry data (647023)
Albion Lawrence, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, United States and Jörn Callies, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States
 
Recent advancements on the characterization of sub-mesoscale variability using satellite altimetry (650283)
Oscar Vergara1, Rosemary Morrow2, Marie-Isabelle Pujol1, Clement Ubelmann1, Gérald Dibarboure3 and Yannice Faugere4, (1)CLS Collecte Localisation Satellites, Toulouse, France, (2)LEGOS CNRS/CNES/IRD/University Toulouse III, Toulouse, France, (3)CNES French National Center for Space Studies, Toulouse, France, (4)CLS Collecte Localisation Satellites, Ramonville Saint-Agne, France
 
An Approach to Empirical Mapping of Incoherent Internal Tides for SWOT (643899)
Svetlana Erofeeva, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States and Gary D Egbert, Oregon State University, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Corvallis, OR, United States
 
Airborne Ocean Topography Measurements in Support of the SWOT Mission (646694)
Nick Statom, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, United States, Luc Lenain, University of California San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, United States and Wallace Kendall Melville, Univ California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
 
Analysis of High-resolution Sea-surface Measurements from Orbiting Satellites (638717)
Toshio Michael Chin1, Edward M Armstrong1, Dimitris Menemenlis2, Vardis M Tsontos1 and Jorge Vazquez2, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States
 
Assessing the impact of along-track altimetry data on ocean state estimation in the SWOT Cal/Val region off the California coast via data assimilation (647371)
Zhijin Li1, Jinbo Wang2, Matthew Archer2 and Lee-Lueng Fu2, (1)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States
 
High Spatial Resolution Mesoscale Oceanic Variability from Non-repeat Satellite Altimetry (654019)
Yao Yu, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, United States, David T Sandwell, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, La Jolla, United States and Prof. Sarah T Gille, PhD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, La Jolla, United States
 
Leveraging surface drifters tracks for the identification of high frequency signatures in future wide-swath altimetric data (641292)
Zoé Caspar-Cohen, Ifremer, Plouzané, France, Aurelien Ponte, CNRS-IFREMER-IRD-UBO, LOPS, Plouzané, France, Xiaolong Yu, IFREMER, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Physique et Spatiale, Brest, France, Noe Lahaye, LOPS, IUEM, University of Brest, Brest, France and Sylvie Le Gentil, Laboratoire de Physique des Océans, Brest, France
 
Multiscale Data Assimilation for SWOT Ocean Application (643707)
Jinbo Wang, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, United States, Zhijin Li, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States and Lee-Lueng Fu, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, United States
 
Seasonality and Amplification of the Sea Surface Signature of Internal Tides (650854)
Noe Lahaye1, Jonathan Gula2 and Guillaume Roullet1, (1)LOPS, IUEM, University of Brest, Brest, France, (2)Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (UBO, CNRS, Ifremer, IRD), Plouzané, France