A Comparison between the Generalized Digital Environmental Model and Levitus Climatologies

Abstract

Two ocean climatologies of temperature and salinity, the Generalized Digital Environmental Model (GDEM) and the Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean, are compared. Dynamic height fields are computed by season from each climatology for the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Indian oceans and are compared on a 1 degree latitude-longitude grid. Large-scale oceanographic features are generally found to be similarly represented in both climatologies. GDEM appears to render better representations of seasonal variability and regions of high current shear, such as the Gulf Stream, because of a different smoothing method and a finer grid spacing. Maps of dynamic heights from both climatologies are presented, and their similarities and differences are discussed. The method for the construction of GDEM is also described in detail. Keywords: Ocean models; Sea-water temperature/salinity; Seasonal variations; Digital simulations; Data bases, Mesoscale oceanography. Reprints.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 15, 1990
Accession Number
ADA223655

Entities

People

  • Michael J. Carron
  • Patrick J. Hogan
  • William J. Teague

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Atlantic Ocean
  • Data Sets
  • Databases
  • Geometry
  • Grids
  • Gulf Stream
  • Indian Ocean
  • North Pacific Ocean
  • Ocean Basins
  • Oceanography
  • Oceans
  • Pacific Ocean
  • Sargasso Sea
  • Sea Surface Temperature
  • Sea Water
  • Standards
  • Surface Temperature

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Oceanography.

Technology Areas

  • Space