Using Historical Surface Data to Verify the Twentieth Century Reanalysis for Oceanographic Applications

The Twentieth Century (20CRv.2) Reanalysis Project of Compo et al. (2010) more than doubles the time span covered by atmospheric reanalyses, and in addition uses an assimilation methodology that provides information about the accuracy of the reanalysis.

Thus the 20CRv.2 potentially offers wonderful advantages for use in multi-decadal ocean circulation and climate studies. This proposal will help fulfill that promise by supporting exploration of the surface winds from the 20CRv.2 in two stages. The first stage will involve comparison of the 20CRv.2 and other multi-decadal reanalyses to wind observations such as those contained in ICOADS (which were not used in the 20CRv.2 assimilation) to estimate accuracy various space and timescales and to detect the presence of time-dependent biases. The second stage will involve examination of output from a simulation of an ocean general circulation model driven by reanalysis winds in comparison with the historical hydrographic record.