PHY-04 Cross-scale interactions: mesoscale and smaller
a 4d-variational ocean data assimilation application for the South China Sea
Xiaocong Ma* , State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science
Yuwu Jiang, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science
Mengdi Xu, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science

In order to model the eddies accurately with regard to time and location in the South China Sea, an incremental 4D-Var data assimilation system is performed with the Regional Ocean Modeling System(ROMS). The observations used in the assimilation cycles include the following: 1-day grided, 0.25°sla from AVISO, 1-day gridded, 0.1°resolution SST from POES AVHRR, and surface and subsurface hydrographic measurements of temperature and salinity collected with ARGO float from UK Met-Office EN4 project dataset. The assimilated model results are compared to forward model results and independent observations. The results show that 4D-Var data assimilation makes an improvement in predicting the mesoscale eddies in the region of interest even though the parameters of 4D-Var may be not optimal and need more effort to be adjusted.