Estimating the quality of the retrieval of the surface geostrophic circulation of the Black Sea by satellite altimetry data based on validation with drifting buoy measurements

Abstract

Combined measurements of satellite altimeters make it possible to determine anomalies of the sea level of the Black Sea on a regular grid with a high spatial resolution 1/8°. In this work arrays of total geostrophic velocities of currents in the Black Sea basin are retrieved and compared with drifter measurements of current velocities for 1999–2007. The comparison is performed both for the whole array of drifter measurements (∼110000 measurements) and individually for each drifter. To retrieve the velocities, two different arrays of mean dynamic topography (MDT) are used: synthetic and climatic mean dynamic topography. The comparison results demonstrate that using synthetic MDT is preferable for calculating geostrophic velocities. Velocities calculated by from satellite altimetry data agree with velocities obtained by in-situ data.