Thomas Bengtsson, National Center for Atmospheric Research,
USA

Estimating Ocean Currents from Freely Floating Buoys

Abstract

The upper ocean dynamics of the Labrador Sea have implications for
understanding the massive air-sea exchanges that drive the thermohaline
circulation. Data collected by satellite readings of ocean buoy drifters
will be used to gain understanding of upper ocean currents.
Specifically, we wish to estimate the temporal and spatial scales of
ocean eddies associated with inertial forces. An approximation of a
continous-time stochastic differential equation is employed to model
buoy-drift, and the Kalman Filter is used to evaluate likelihoods and
estimate parameters. Issues that will be discussed are how to represent
terms from the equations of motion related to turbulence, and how to
deal with sub-grid scale variability. One goal of the talk is to make
researchers aware of a rich class of spatio-temporal processes naturally
arising in the context of climate and weather systems.