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Cited by 116Oceanographic and Atmospheric ProcessesOcean Waves and Remote SensingClimate variability and models

Review and assessment of latent and sensible heat flux accuracy over the global oceans.

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Bentamy, A., Piollé, J.F., Grouazel, A., Danielson, R., Gulev, S., Paul, F., Azelmat, H., Mathieu, P.P. +17 more·2017·Remote Sensing of Environment
DOI 10.1016/j.rse.2017.08.016
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Abstract

For over a decade, several research groups have been developing air-sea heat flux information over the global ocean, including latent (LHF) and sensible (SHF) heat fluxes over the global ocean. This paper aims to provide new insight into the quality and error characteristics of turbulent heat flux estimates at various spatial and temporal scales (from daily upwards). The study is performed within the European Space Agency (ESA) Ocean Heat Flux (OHF) project. One of the main objectives of the OHF project is to meet the recommendations and requirements expressed by various international programs such as the World Research Climate Program (WCRP) and Climate and Ocean Variability, Predictability, and Change (CLIVAR), recognizing the need for better characterization of existing flux errors with respect to the input bulk variables (e.g. surface wind, air and sea surface temperatures , air and surface specific humidities), and to the atmospheric and oceanic conditions (e.g. wind conditions and sea state). The analysis is based on the use of daily averaged LHF and SHF and the associated bulk variables derived from major satellite-based and atmospheric reanalysis products. Inter-comparisons of heat flux products indicate that all of them exhibit similar space and time patterns. However, they also reveal significant differences in magnitude in some specific regions such as the western ocean boundaries during the Northern Hemisphere winter season, and the high southern latitudes. The differences tend to be closely related to large differences in surface wind speed and/or specific air humidity (for LHF) and to air and sea temperature differences (for SHF). Further quality investigations are performed through comprehensive comparisons with daily-averaged LHF and SHF estimated from moorings. The resulting statistics are used to assess the error of each OHF product. Consideration of error correlation between products and observations (e.g., by their assimilation) is also given. This reveals generally high noise variance in all products and a weak signal in common with in situ observations, with some products only slightly better than others. The OHF LHF and SHF products, and their associated error characteristics, are used to compute daily OHF multiproduct-ensemble (OHF/MPE) estimates of LHF and SHF over the ice-free global ocean on a 0.25° × 0.25° grid. The accuracy of this heat multiproduct, determined from comparisons with mooring data, is greater than for any individual product. It is used as a reference for the anomaly characterization of each individual OHF product.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.rse.2017.08.016

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  • Estimation of surface heat fluxes contains uncertainty that hampers the ability to accurately quantify air-sea thermodynamic interactions and heat budgets in the tropical Atlantic.

    “The estimation contains uncertainty, which hampers our ability to accurately quantify air-sea thermodynamic interactions and heat budgets in the tropical Atlantic (Frankignoul and Kestenare, 2005;Pinker et al., 2014;Bentamy et al., 2017).”

    From The tropical atlantic observing system (2019) · cites this paper as Bentamy et al., 2017

    The Introduction (page unavailable) says surface-flux products have biases and uncertainties and links flux accuracy to air–sea interaction studies and heat-budget closure. The Statistical Results (page unavailable) report discrepancies in tropical regions, but the passages do not establish the specific effect on quantifying heat budgets in the tropical Atlantic. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Chou, S.-H., E. Nelkin, J. Ardizzone, R. M. Atlas, and C.-L. Shie, 2003: Surface turbulent heat and momentum fluxes over global oceans based on the Goddard satellite retrieval, version 2 (GSSTF2). Journal of Climate, 16, 3256-3273.
  2. Clayson, C. A., J. B. Roberts, and A. Bogdanoff, 2013: SEAFLUX Version 1: a new satellite- based ocean-atmosphere turbulent flux dataset. International Journal of Climatology, in revision
  3. Danielson, R. E., 2017. Collocations of ICOADS and Ocean Heat Flux (centered five-day) latent and sensible heat flux estimates. SEANOE online data archive at http://doi.org/10.17882/_____, in preparation. · DOI
  4. Louis, J. F., M. Tiedtke, and J. Geleyn, 1982: A short history of the operational PBL parameterization at ECMWF. Proc. Workshop on Planetary Boundary Layer Parameterization, Reading, United Kingdom, ECMWF, 59-80.

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Authors
Bentamy, A., Piollé, J. F., Grouazel, A., Danielson, R., Gulev, S., Paul, F., Azelmat, H., Mathieu, P. P., von Schuckmann, K., Sathyendranath, S., Evers-King, H., Esau, I., Johannessen, J. A., Clayson, C. A., Pinker, R. T., Grodsky, S. A., Bourassa, M., Smith, S. R., Haines, K., Valdivieso, M., Merchant, C. J., Chapron, B., Anderson, A., Hollmann, R., & Josey, S. A.
Affiliations
  • Ifremer (FR)
  • Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NO)
  • Institute of Oceanology. PP Shirshov Russian Academy of Sciences (RU)
  • European Space Research Institute (IT)
  • Plymouth Marine Laboratory (GB)
  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (US)
  • University of Maryland, College Park (US)
  • Florida State University (US)
  • National Centre for Earth Observation (GB)
  • University of Reading (GB)
  • European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (DE)
Corresponding author
Bentamy, A.
ORCID
Venue
Remote Sensing of Environment
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-11
Volume
201
Pages
196-218
ISSN
0034-4257 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.rse.2017.08.016
OpenAlex
W2756493409
Cited by
116
References
56
Citations by year
2026: 8 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 10
FWCI
7.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Remote Sensing of Environment (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Marine Biological Association (acceptedVersion)
  • CentAUR (University of Reading) (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Institutional Archive of Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) (submittedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • ESA (4000111424/14/I-AM)
  • Russian Science Foundation (14-17-00697-II)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Ocean Waves and Remote Sensing
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
Keywords
latent heat flux, sensible heat flux, air-sea heat flux, ocean heat flux, surface wind speed, specific humidity, sea surface temperature, global ocean

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