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Design and Assessment of the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System

Peter Oke* and Pavel Sakov*^Peter Oke* and Pavel Sakov*^

*CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research

Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research

^ NERSC

June 2011

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There’s nothin’ worse than a modeller who

reckons they know what they’re talking about …

You know you’re in trouble when you start to believe your model

…

Delivering recommendations to skeptical observational oceanographers is fraught with danger …

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Outline

Goal: to contribute to discussion about the design of IMOS

Scope of work: limited to shelf and coastal IMOS components

Strategies:

Explicitly consider design aspects for intraseasonal (<60-dy) and interannual (>14-mth) variability

Analysis of signal-to-noise ratios: relevant to observation platforms that are infrequent in time

Correlation footprints

Key Outcomes:

The National Reference Stations provide remarkably good coverage for monitoring interannual variability over the shelf

The regional IMOS mooring arrays significantly improve the coverage on intraseasonal time-scales

Some redundancy in regional mooring arrays

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Analysis domain

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Datasets

Observed SST -- ¼ degree composites from AVHRR and AMSRE, processed at CMAR-Hobart

Observed SSH – ¼ degree gridded SSH from all altimeters, processed at CMAR-Hobart

Modelled SST, SSH, SSV, …

Bluelink model (Spinup6p8)

Configuration of MOM4p1

1/10 degree horizontal resolution

5-m vertical resolution near surface

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SST

MODEL OBSERVATIONS

Intraseasonal

Interannual

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SLA

MODEL OBSERVATIONS

Intraseasonal

Interannual

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SSU

ZONAL MERIDIONAL

Intraseasonal

Interannual

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Observation “footprint” (e.g., Darwin NRS)

Interannual Intraseasonal

SSH

SST

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Combined “footprint” for NRSs on interannual time-scales

MODEL Observations

SSH

SST

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Combined “footprint” for NRSs plus Regional IMOS moorings

NRS onlyNRS + regional IMOS Moorings

Small footprint for velocity

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SA-IMOS regional moorings array

Intraseasonal SSH

Intraseasonal SSV

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Footprint of individual moorings

Cabbage Patch Mooring

Deep Slope Mooring

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Footprint of individual moorings

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Summary

NRS array provides remarkably good coverage of interannual (>14-m) variability over the shelf

Regional IMOS mooring array significantly improves the coverage for intraseasonal (<60-d) variability

Many regional IMOS moorings provide complimentary information about the circulation

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QLD-IMOS regional mooring array

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Some moorings are very complimentary

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NSW-IMOS regional mooring array

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WA-IMOS regional mooring array