Global ocean Temperature and salinity
Monitoring the Ocean Variability
The Argo network of profiling floats is a unique tool for monitoring the most active layers of the ocean interior. This dataset, complemented with more local arrays (mainly moorings and CTDs) is used to produce gridded fields of temperature and salinity in the upper 2000 meters. From those fields we can identify anomalies relative to the mean seasonal cycle and quantify the global changes from intra-seasonal to inter-annual time scales.
Global mean temperature, heat content or sea level are important indices of ocean changes. Combined with altimetry or gravimetry derived information they allow to monitor the oceanic part of the climate system. Analyzing the consistency between the various estimates is also a mean of detecting errors.
The analysis method is based on optimal estimation, for this purpose we have developed the (ISAS).
