Complementarities between ship-of-opportunity in situ surface salinity data and the ARGO data

Gilles Reverdin,

LODYC, Univ. Paris VI,
boite 100,
4, place Jussieu,
75252 Paris Cx 05,
France

Surface data have been collected by ships-of-opportunity across large swaths of the Atlantic
Ocean on regular basis since the mid 1970s, either from water samples collected mostly
from buckets or data from thermosalinographs (TSG). These data are used to produce maps
of surface salinity, which have two main drawbacks. First, the coverage is highly
inhomogeneous; second, the data present often biases which are very difficult to assess.
The ARGO data sampling of the upper ocean presents since the late 1990s an attractive
alternative. We will present first the intercomparison of the two types of data,
and illustrate how these can be used to identify biases in the ships-of-opportunity
TGS data. We'll also compare the performances of mapping of the TSG data versus
the ARGO data.