Application of Three-Dimensional Interpolation in Estimating Diapycnal Diffusivity in the South China Sea

Abstract

Diapycnal diffusivity is an important parameter to characterize oceanic turbulent mixing and vertical transport. However, due to the challenging accessibility of field observations, the observation of diapycnal diffusivity in the South China Sea (SCS) is rare. In this study, a three-dimensional field of diapycnal diffusivity in the SCS with high spatial resolution is performed by interpolating the rare field observations, which aims to provide a reference for the value of diapycnal diffusivity in ocean models. Given the anisotropy of diapycnal diffusivity and its rapid change in the magnitude in the vertical direction, several typical interpolation methods are compared in this study. Results of two cross-validation methods demonstrate that the three-dimensional (3D) thin-plate spline interpolation method yields the most reasonable and accurate results among a total of five typical methods used in this study.