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Luzon strait mesoscale eddy characteristics in HYCOM reanalysis, simulation, and forecasts

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Abstract

Luzon Strait and the northern South China Sea are regions of high mesoscale eddy activity. These transient eddies are important to the local circulation and for water mass transports. This work applies satellite altimeter observations and an ocean model reanalysis, simulation, and forecasts to evaluate the realism of these eddies and to determine the consistency of the properties with and without data assimilation. First, we perform a 13-year daily comparison between a HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) data-assimilative reanalysis (HYCOM-R), a HYCOM non-assimilative simulation (HYCOM-S), HYCOM forecasts (HYCOM-F) within the Earth System Prediction Capability (ESPC), and from the U.S. Navy’s operational ALtimeter Processing System (ALPS). We compared spatial and temporal mean physical characteristics with a focus on amplitude, radius, and eddy kinetic energy and find the most consistently higher-amplitude and higher-energy eddies in the HYCOM-R product, attributed to dynamical interpolation between the altimeter tracks. When eddies were compared between HYCOM-R and HYCOM-F, we find more similar eddy characteristics for anticyclonic eddies over cyclonic eddies. We find an increased number of low-amplitude forecast eddies present on the first day of each forecast that were still present on days 10, 20, and 30. In HYCOM-R, these smaller eddies dissipated before they did in the forecasts, leaving the larger, higher-energy eddies to dominate the characteristics of the eddy field.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been performed as part of the 6.1 South China Sea Circulation Dynamics project under program element 61153N. Computer time and resources were courtesy of the High-Performance Computing Modernization Program and were run on the Department of Defense Supercomputing Research Center (DSRC; https://centers.hpc.mil/), Stennis Space Center, MS on the HPE SGI 8600 (Gaffney) for all HYCOM products. HYCOM-R is also available publicly at https://www.hycom.org/dataserver/gofs-3pt1/reanalysis/. HYCOM-S output is available upon request and the HYCOM-F output is available to US Department of Defense (DoD) and DoD contractors only. Information about ALPS can be found at https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/altimetry/. This is NRL contribution number NRL-JA-7320-22-5655. Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited.

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  1. Naval Research Laboratory, Ocean Sciences, Code 7323, Stennis Space Center, MS, USA, 39529-5004

    Corinne B. Trott, E. Joseph Metzger & Zhitao Yu

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  1. Corinne B. Trott
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  2. E. Joseph Metzger
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Correspondence to Corinne B. Trott.

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Trott, C.B., Metzger, E.J. & Yu, Z. Luzon strait mesoscale eddy characteristics in HYCOM reanalysis, simulation, and forecasts. J Oceanogr 79, 423–441 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10872-023-00686-5

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