Analysis of mesoscale Eddy in the Nordic seas and Barents Sea using multi-satellite data

Abstract

Under the background of climate change, the characteristics of meso-scale eddies (radius > 20 km) in the Nordic Sea are worthy of further study. In this study, the daily sea level anomaly (SLA) product provided by archiving, validation, and interpretation of satellite oceanographic data (AVISO) and the daily sea surface temperature (SST) data provided by remote sensing systems (REMSSs) were collected from January 2003 to December 2021. The collected data were daily averaged with a spatial grid resolution of 0.25°. The large-scale eddies with a radius of >80 km and activity intensity (EKE) values of >0.02 m2/s were more detectable using SST data Moreover, the spatial distribution between the SLA-based and SST-based eddies had the opposite correlation with respect to the water depth. The SST-based eddies were more sensitive to seasonal variations. The long-term variations in the eddy parameters and the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI) during 2003–2021 were studied, and it was found that the radius of the SLA-based eddies was likely consistent with the NAOI and the EKE of the SLA-based eddies has the highest correlation (=0.2) with the NAOI, however, the correlation between eddy parameters and the NAOI is not significant. Collectively, SLA data has good performance on eddy identification in most cases, while SST data is suitable for investigating the activities of mesoscale eddies with large radius (> 80 km) and strong EKE (>0.02 m2/s).