Cite this paper:
Zhenli HUI, Ying LI, Jia SUN, Long YU, Xia JU, Xuejun XIONG. Validation and error analysis of wave-modified ocean surface currents in the northwestern Pacific Ocean[J]. Journal of Oceanology and Limnology, 2022, 40(4): 1289-1303

Validation and error analysis of wave-modified ocean surface currents in the northwestern Pacific Ocean
Zhenli HUI1,2,3, Ying LI1,2,3, Jia SUN1,2,3, Long YU1,2,3, Xia JU1,2,3, Xuejun XIONG1,2,3
1 First Institute of Oceanography, and Key Laboratory of Marine Science and Numerical Modeling, Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao 266061, China;
2 Laboratory for Regional Oceanography and Numerical Modeling, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology(Qingdao), Qingdao 266237, China;
3 Shandong Key Laboratory of Marine Science and Numerical Modeling, Qingdao 266061, China
Abstract:
By incorporating the wave-induced Coriolis-Stokes forcing into the classical Ekman layer, the wave-modified ocean surface currents in the northwestern Pacific Ocean were estimated. Thus, the ocean surface currents are the combination of classical Ekman current from the cross-calibrated multi-platform (CCMP) wind speed, geostrophic current from the mean absolute dynamic topography (MADT), and waveinduced current based on the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) surface wave datasets. Weight functions are introduced in the Ekman current formulation as well. Comparisons with in-situ data from Lagrangian drifters in the study area and Kuroshio Extension Observatory (KEO) observations at 32.3°N, 144.6°E, and 15-m depth indicate that wave-modified ocean surface currents provide accurate time means of zonal and meridional currents in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Result shows that the wave-modified currents are quite consistent with the Lagrangian drifter observations for the period 1993-2017 in the deep ocean. The correlation (root mean square error, RMSE) is 0.96 (1.45 cm/s) for the zonal component and 0.90 (1.07 cm/s) for the meridional component. However, wavemodified currents underestimate the Lagrangian drifter velocity in strong current and some offshore regions, especially in the regions along the Japan coast and the southeastern Mindanao. What's more, the wavemodified currents overestimate the pure Eulerian KEO current which does not consider the impact of waves, and the zonal (meridional) correlation and RMSE are 0.95 (0.90) and 11.25 cm/s (12.05 cm/s) respectively. These comparisons demonstrate that our wave-modified ocean surface currents have high precision and can describe the real-world ocean in the northwestern Pacific Ocean accurately and intuitively, which can provide important routes to calculate ocean surface currents on large spatial scales.
Key words:    ocean surface current|Ekman current|geostrophic current|Stokes drift   
Received: 2021-06-27   Revised:
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