FN Archimer Export Format PT J TI Reconstructability of 3-Dimensional Upper Ocean Circulation from SWOT Sea Surface Height Measurements BT AF QIU, Bo CHEN, Shuiming KLEIN, Patrice UBELMANN, Clement FU, Lee-Lueng SASAKI, Hideharu AS 1:1;2:1;3:2;4:3;5:3;6:4; FF 1:;2:;3:;4:;5:;6:; C1 Univ Hawaii Manoa, Dept Oceanog, 1000 Pope Rd, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA. Ifremer CNRS UBO IRD, Lab Phys Oceans, Plouzane, France. CALTECH, Jet Prop Lab, Pasadena, CA USA. JAMSTEC, Applicat Lab, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. C2 UNIV HAWAII MANOA, USA CNRS, FRANCE CALTECH, USA JAMSTEC, JAPAN UM LOPS IF 3.13 TC 51 UR https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00309/42032/41331.pdf LA English DT Article DE ;Variability;Models and modeling;General circulation models;Vertical motion;Circulation/ Dynamics;Quasigeostrophic models;Mesoscale processes;Observational techniques and algorithms;Oceanic variability;Altimetry AB Utilizing the framework of effective surface quasi-geostrophic (eSQG) theory, we explored the potential of reconstructing the 3D upper ocean circulation structures, including the balanced vertical velocity (w) field, from high-resolution sea surface height (SSH) data of the planned SWOT satellite mission. Specifically, we utilized the 1/30°, submesoscale-resolving, OFES model output and subjected it through the SWOT simulator that generates the along-swath SSH data with expected measurement errors. Focusing on the Kuroshio Extension region in the North Pacific where regional Rossby numbers range from 0.22 to 0.32, we found that the eSQG dynamics constitutes an effective framework for reconstructing the 3D upper ocean circulation field. Using the modeled SSH data as input, the eSQG-reconstructed relative vorticity (ζ) and w fields are found to reach a correlation of 0.7–0.9 and 0.6–0.7, respectively, in the 1,000m upper ocean when compared to the original model output. Degradation due to the SWOT sampling and measurement errors in the input SSH data for the ζ and w reconstructions is found to be moderate, 5–25% for the 3D ζ field and 15-35% for the 3D w field. There exists a tendency for this degradation ratio to decrease in regions where the regional eddy variability (or Rossby number) increases. PY 2016 PD MAR SO Journal Of Physical Oceanography SN 0022-3670 PU Amer Meteorological Soc VL 46 IS 3 UT 000371477000002 BP 947 EP 963 DI 10.1175/JPO-D-15-0188.1 ID 42032 ER EF