Surface velocity estimates of the North Indian Ocean from satellite gravity and altimeter missions

ABSTRACT

The circulation in the North Indian Ocean (NIO) is one of the most complex systems compared with other regions of global oceans, mostly due to its interactions with the monsoon winds. In recent years, our ability to measure the ocean’s mean dynamic topography (MDT) from space has improved immensely with the availability of satellite gravity measurements from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) missions. The present study uses data from GOCE and GRACE satellite gravity missions together with altimeter data in retrieving the geoid, satellite-only MDT, and surface velocities in the NIO. The study estimates geoid heights of the NIO from all five releases of the direct approach and the time-wise GOCE gravity data. The formal error associated with geoid heights at different resolutions is found to be the lowest for the latest release of direct approach GOCE data. In addition, a new satellite-only MDT is estimated from the direct approach GOCE geoid and the CNES_CLS11 mean sea surface. This MDT corrected to a 20-year time reference is used together with the newly reprocessed sea level anomaly data to estimate absolute dynamic topography and surface geostrophic velocities in the NIO. The total surface velocities computed from the Ekman and geostrophic velocity fields reproduce all major surface currents in the NIO, along with their seasonality. Furthermore, total surface velocity estimates computed here are validated using surface drifters and are found to be highly comparable (difference within ± 10 cm s^–1) with more than 170,000 individual surface drifter observations. Finally, the total velocities estimated here are used to examine the variability of the East India Coastal Current.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Norwegian Research Council [GOCE-MDT (Project number: 212020)]. The GEKCO2 product (Ekman data) used in this study was developed by Joël Sudre at LEGOS, France. The altimeter products were produced by Ssalto/Duacs and distributed by Aviso, with support from Cnes. I thank Dhanya Pushpadas, Dr. Richard. E. Danielson, and Prof. Johnny. A. Johannessen for their support and suggestions. I also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Norwegian Research Council [GOCE-MDT (Project number: 212020)].