Estimates of the Southern Ocean general circulation improved by animal-borne instruments
Date
12/2013Author
Grant ID
NE/G014833/1
NE/E018289/1
NE/J005649/1
Metadata
Show full item recordAltmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
Over the last decade, several hundred seals have been equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors in the Southern Ocean for both biological and physical oceanographic studies. A calibrated collection of seal-derived hydrographic data is now available, consisting of more than 165,000 profiles. The value of these hydrographic data within the existing Southern Ocean observing system is demonstrated herein by conducting two state estimation experiments, differing only in the use or not of seal data to constrain the system. Including seal-derived data substantially modifies the estimated surface mixed-layer properties and circulation patterns within and south of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Agreement with independent satellite observations of sea-ice concentration is improved, especially along the East Antarctic shelf. Instrumented animals efficiently reduce a critical observational gap, and their contribution to monitoring polar climate variability will continue to grow as data accuracy and spatial coverage increase.
Citation
Roquet , F , Wunsch , C , Forget , G , Heimbach , P , Guinet , C , Reverdin , G , Charrassin , J-B , Bailleul , F , Costa , D P , Huckstadt , L A , Goetz , K T , Kovacs , K M , Lydersen , C , Biuw , M , Nøst , O A , Bornemann , H , Ploetz , J , Bester , M N , McIntyre , T , Muelbert , M C , Hindell , M , McMahon , C R , Williams , G , Harcourt , R , Field , I , Chafik , L , Nicholls , K W , Boehme , L & Fedak , M 2013 , ' Estimates of the Southern Ocean general circulation improved by animal-borne instruments ' , Geophysical Research Letters , vol. 40 , pp. 1-5 . https://doi.org/10.1002/2013GL058304
Publication
Geophysical Research Letters
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0094-8276Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2013 The Authors. Geophysical Research Letters published by Wiley on behalf of the American Geophysical Union. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.