[26-Nov-2014] Umbert, M., Portabella, M., Guimbard, S., Ballabrea, J., and Turiel, A.
Presented at the 2014 Ocean Salinity Science and Salinity Remote Sensing WorkshopRemote sensing imagery of the ocean surface provides a synoptic view of mesoscale signatures from different ocean scalars advected by the oceanic flow. The most probable origin of the observed structures is the turbulent character of the oceanic flow as they slowly evolve and are very persistent over time scales compatible with ocean mesoscale dynamics. At spatial scales of kilometers, turbulence is mainly 2D, and a complex geometry, full of filaments and eddies of different sizes, emerges in remote sensing images of surface chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) and sea surface salinity (SSS), as well as in the better resolved sea surface temperature (SST) and sea surface height (SSH). A fusion technique has been recently proposed to exploit these common turbulent signatures between variables. This technique is theoretically based on the geometrical properties of advected tracers [Turiel et al., 2005b]. Coherent vortices in a turbulent flow strongly interact, leading to permanently stretch and fold small-scale filaments ejected from vortex cores, and generate small-scale tracer gradients between eddies. Therefore the spatial structure of a tracer inherits some properties of the underlying flow. This geometrical arrangement of the flow is intimately linked to the energy cascade. A key point in this approach is the assumption of a multifractal structure in ocean images [Lovejoy et al., 2001]. It is assumed that singularity lines of ocean variables coincide [Umbert et al., 2014]. In turn, the gradient of both variables can be related by a smooth function. As a first and simple approach, the relating function is expressed as the identity, leading to a local regression scheme. This simple approach allows reducing the error and improving the coverage of the resulting Level 4 product of one variable using another variable as a template. Moreover, information about the statistical relationship between the two fields can also be obtained. This methodology is been applied to Aquarius SSS using SSH from AVISO as template in the Gulf Stream. Resulting SSS Level 4 product contain the mesoscale structures seen by SSH and a significant reduction of the uncertainty.