Kachelein, L., and Wang, J. (2024)
Presented at:
Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024The unprecedented resolution of SWOT sea surface height anomaly (SSHA) data reveals features at length scales at which internal gravity wave motions become important. Preliminary analysis shows that SWOT performs well near coastlines, allowing the investigation of SSH within the range of coastal high-frequency radar (HFR) networks, which measure surface currents. Combining these independent datasets, we analyze SSHA from SWOT and total surface current from the HF-Radar Network off the US West Coast in order to investigate the separation of balanced and unbalanced processes. We decompose surface currents into wind-driven, tidal, and low-frequency components in order to obtain an estimate of geostrophic velocity, which is compared to calculated geostrophic velocity from SWOT. The ageostrophic components are also compared to SWOT to investigate the extent to which they can be observed from SSHA. Comparisons to global, tide-resolving high-resolution MITgcm simulation outputs are used to further investigate dynamics at these scales. Implications for SWOT and a potential future Odysea mission are discussed.
