Surface Stress

	Ocean surface stress (OSS) is the two-dimensional vector drag at the bottom of the atmosphere and the dynamical forcing at the top of the ocean. OSS influences the air-sea exchange of energy, water and gases. OSS is important for determining the large scale momentum forcing of the ocean, and consequent ocean circulation including ocean upwelling regions. Accurate knowledge of stress magnitudes is also essential for reliable computations of air-sea heat fluxes as well as air-sea gas exchanges and mass fluxes.
	Domain:	Ocean
	Subdomain:	Physical
	Scientific Area:	Physical Properties
	ECV Steward:
	Products:	Surface Stress

October Mean Wind Stress

Figure: October Wind stress Climatology estimated from the 8-year record (September 1999 - August 2007) of wind measurements by the NASA QuikSCAT scatterometer.

Reference: Risien, C.M., and D.B. Chelton, 2008: A Global Climatology of Surface Wind and Wind Stress Fields from Eight Years of QuikSCAT Scatterometer Data. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 38, 2379-2413.

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 Stress.

Products			Ocean Surface Stress
	(*)	Unit	Values
Horizontal Resolution	G	km	10
	B
	T		100
Vertical Resolution	G		-
	B		-
	T		-
Temporal Resolution	G	h	1
	B
	T		24
Timeliness	G	d	7
	B
	T		30
Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma)	G	N m-2	0.004 or 2%
	B
	T		0.02 or 8%
Stability	G	N m-2	0.0006
	B
	T		0.0001

(*) 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.

Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC)

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Objectively Analyzed air-sea Fluxes (OAFlux)

Environmental Research Division's Data Access Program (ERDDAP)