Ocean/Sea Ice: Assimilation Setup: SST



The assimilation of SST is fourth in the sequence depicted in Table 1, correcting the upper analyzed ocean heat content that was a result of earlier sequence of assimilations (sequence 1-3 in Table 1) within the same time window. When assimilating CMIP5 data (prior to 1982), the observation errors are set to 0.5°C, globally. After 1982, when assimilating Reynolds SST, the observation errors are given by the error in the optimal interpolation used in the creation of the gridded SST retrieval. The mean of the error from 1982 to present is given in Figure 7. The assimilation methodology uses the SAFE algorithm with Gaussian horizontal and vertical covariances. The vertical influence of SST is limited to the minimum of 500 m and the depth at which the temperature differs by 2°C from the temperature at 5 m.