Estimating the energy flux from the wind to ocean inertial motions: The sensitivity to surface wind fields

Abstract

The energy flux from the wind to ocean inertial motions is estimated using three wind products in comparison to the benchmark NCEP winds: (1) corrected NCEP winds, based on scatterometer measurements (Large and Yeager, 2004), increase the energy flux by 50% globally and by 30% at mid‐latitudes, (2) blended QSCAT/NCEP winds double the energy flux at mid‐latitudes, and lead to much larger increases at high latitudes and near the equator, (3) enhanced NCEP winds in the North Atlantic Ocean, through a kinematic reanalysis procedure (Swail and Cox, 2000), increase the energy flux by 30%. We conclude that estimates of the energy fluxes are quite sensitive to wind errors and spatial resolution. NCEP winds provide a lower bound estimate of wind energy flux into ocean near‐inertial motions.