State estimation improves prospects for ocean research

TLDR

Rigorous global ocean state estimation methods now produce dynamically consistent, time‑varying model‑data syntheses that are used to study key scientific problems. The study focuses on synthesizing observations and models into a unified, dynamically consistent ocean state estimate. Citation: Smith and Koblinsky (2001).

Abstract

Rigorous global ocean state estimation methods can now be used to produce dynamically consistent time‐varying model/data syntheses, the results of which are being used to study a variety of important scientific problems. Figure 1 shows a schematic of a complete ocean observing and synthesis system that includes global observations and state‐of‐the‐art ocean general circulation models (OGCM) run on modern computer platforms. A global observing system is described in detail in Smith and Koblinsky [2001],and the present status of ocean modeling and anticipated improvements are addressed by Griffies et al. [2001]. Here, the focus is on the third component of state estimation: the synthesis of the observations and a model into a unified, dynamically consistent estimate.