Yy. Yu et al., SATELLITE ALTIMETER DERIVED GEOSTROPHIC CURRENTS IN THE WESTERN TROPICAL PACIFIC DURING 1992-1993 AND THEIR VALIDATION WITH DRIFTING BUOY TRAJECTORIES, J GEO RES-O, 100(C12), 1995, pp. 25069-25085
TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter measurements from the western tropi
cal Pacific (15 degrees S-20 degrees N, 125 degrees E-165 degrees W) a
re used to make monthly sea surface topography maps for the period Oct
ober 1992 to October 1993. The altimeter data were processed using sta
ndard corrections to estimate along-track sea surface height anomalies
which were interpolated to monthly 1/10 degrees resolution maps. To c
onvert these surface height anomalies to absolute sea surface height,
a 0/1000-dbar mean seasonal dynamic height climatology was computed fr
om the same input data used by Levitus (1982) to compute his dynamic h
eight climatology, with less spatial smoothing. By adding the appropri
ate monthly altimeter heights to these seasonal means, we produce 12 a
pproximately monthly sea surface topography maps from 36 cycles of alt
imeter data. The corresponding monthly geostrophic surface currents we
re compared with the tracks of nearly coincident satellite-tracked dri
fting buoys and were found to agree well in most cases. The velocity c
omponents (zonal and meridional) were plotted separately with respect
to the velocities estimated from the buoy positions, and correlations
of these two data sets are very high. The seasonal variability of the
surface geostrophic currents in this region is depicted by the monthly
maps of sea surface height.