Key Factors for Improving the Resolution of Mapped Sea Surface Height from Multi-Satellite Altimeters in the South China Sea

Abstract

A satellite altimeter measures sea surface height (SSH) along the nadir track. Multiple satellite altimeters have been in orbit, and the measurements been merged for mapping mesoscale eddies of ~100 km in size in the oceans. The capability of the mapped SSH for resolving mesoscale eddies depends on mapping algorithms. A two-dimensional variational (2DVAR) algorithm was implemented to generate mapped SSH at a grid size of 1/12° in the South China Sea. A range of comparisons were performed between the mapped SSH and the commonly used AVISO (Archiving, Validation, and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic satellite data) mapped SSH data product at a grid size of 1/8° and 1/4°. The effective resolution, which represents the spatial scale that the data can resolve, was examined. The effective resolution of the mapped SSH using the 2DVAR algorithm is approximately 100 km, while it is 250 km with the 1/8° and 1/4° AVISO data products. The difference in the effective resolution results from the difference in the background state and thus the background error. The result suggests that the effective resolution of the mapped data could be increased by choosing a background state so that the associated errors could have a smaller decorrelation length scale.