A Comparison of Latent Heat Fluxes over Global Oceans for Four Flux Products

Abstract

The ocean surface latent heat flux (LHF) plays an essential role in global energy and water cycle variability. In this study, monthly LHF over global oceans during 1992-93 are compared among Goddard Satellite-Based Surface Turbulent Fluxes, version 2 (GSSTF2), Hamburg Ocean-Atmosphere Parameters and Fluxes from Satellite Data (HOAPS), NCEP-NCAR reanalysis (NCEP), and da Silva et al. (da Silva). To find the causes for discrepancies of LHF, monthly 10-m wind speed (U 10m ), 10-m specific humidity (Q 10m ), and sea-air humidity difference (Q S Q 10m ) are also compared during the same period. The mean differences, standard deviations of differences, and temporal correlation of these monthly variables over global oceans during 1992-93 between GSSTF2 and each of the other three datasets are analyzed. The large-scale patterns of the 2-yr-mean fields for these variables are similar among these four datasets, but significant quantitative differences are found.