Skip to main content
Welcome to GCOS
GCOS Slogan

Main navigation

  • Home
  • About
  • ECV
    • Essential Climate Variables
    • ECV Review
    • About Essential Climate Variables
  • Expert Panels
    • Atmospheric Observation Panel for Climate
    • Ocean Observations Physics and Climate Panel
    • Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate
    • Joint Panels Meeting 2019
    • Joint Panels Meeting 2021
  • Cooperation
    • Cooperation Mechanism
    • Regional Workshops
    • National Cooperations
    • CBS Lead Centres for GCOS
  • Indicators
  • News
  • Networks
  • GCOS Goes Green
  • Publications
    • GCOS Implementation Plan 2022
    • GCOS Implementation Plan 2016
    • GCOS Status Report 2021
    • Publications and Outreach
  1. Home
  2. Essential Climate Variables
  3. Surface Currents

 

Surface Currents

The surface ocean general circulation is responsible for significant surface transport of heat, salt, passive tracers and ocean pollutants. On basin scales, surface currents and their variations are a major player in climate to weather fluctuations. The boundary currents on each side of the ocean basins transport significant amounts of heat, salt and passive tracers. Western Boundary Currents in particular transport heat and properties polwards, moderating climate. Convergences/divergences, spiralling eddies, and filaments all contribute to vertical motions and mass exchange. Surface currents impact the steepness of surface waves, and are thus important for generating accurate marine sea state forecasts.
  Domain: Ocean
  Subdomain: Physical
  Scientific Area: Physical Properties
  ECV Steward: Marjolaine Krug
  Products:  Ekman Currents; Surface Geostrophic Current

 


Surface Geostrophic Currents

Figure: Globcurrent merged global ocean gridded absolute geostrophic velocities from SSALTO/DUACS AVISO L4 Product on 0.1 degree resolution geographic grid.

Source: www.globcurrent.ifremer.fr

 


ECV Products and Requirements

These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).

The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV Surface Currents.

Products   Ekman Currents     Surface Geostrophic Current
  (*) Unit Values   Unit Values
Horizontal Resolution G km 10   km 10
B 20   20
T 25   100
Vertical Resolution G   -     -
B -   -
T -   -
Temporal Resolution G h 1   d 1/4
B     1
T 6   7
Timeliness G h 1   d  
B      
T 3   1
Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) G m s-1 0.02   m s-1 0.02
B      
T 0.1   0.1
Stability G          
B      
T      

 

(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful


Data Sources

This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.

  • Globcurrent

http://www.globcurrent.org/

  • Ocean Surface Current Analyses Real-time (OSCAR)

https://www.esr.org/research/oscar/

  • Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC)

https://podaac.jpl.nasa.gov/

EU Copernicus

 

Sponsors

Twitter icon



Copyright | Privacy | Contact