|
|
Spacebased Ocean-atmosphere Water Exchange
Moisture transport integrated over depth of atmosphere and its
divergence (equivalent to evaporation - precipitation), daily and monthly
maps, 1999-2009,
0.5 degree, are derived from QuikSCAT wind vector, cloud drift wind, and
SSM/I integrated water vapor.
Sufficient coverage and resolution of moisture transport integrated
over depth of the atmosphere (Θ), evaporation (E), and
precipitation (P) can be best achieved from the vantage point of space.
The estimation of E, P, and Θ from space observations is described
in
Liu and Xie (2014).
The figure shows that the annual mean of
∇⋅Θ bears similar large-scale features as that of E-P
despite of regional discrepancies.
The image was published in the textbook "Atmospheric science, second
edition: An introductory survey" by J. M. Wallace and
P. V. Hobbs (2006).
Details of methodology to retrieve Θ can be found in
Xie et al. (2008).
Application of Θ to study the precipitation jump paradox in the
West African monsoon (WAM) region is presented in
Liu et al. (2012).
Check
Publication
and
Validation
for more details.
Recent data using ASCAT to replace QuikSCAT
(Liu and Xie 2017)
are available upon request.
|
