Annual Averages of Ocean Reference Stations

Yearly averages of observed meteorogical and surface fluxes show the importance of long term monitoring at select sites in the open ocean. Comparison of model outputs with in situ data shows that observational data is still needed to improve model results.

Data Sources

Short Name	Source	Reference
OBS	in situ WHOI-UOP Ocean Reference Station	WHOI
ERA	ECMWF ERA-interim	ECMWF
NCEP2	NCEP Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2)	NCEP
MERRA2	Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2)	NASA
OAF	Objectively Analyzed Air-sea Fluxes	WHOI

Meteorogical Data

Meteorological data is presented in tables with the following short names.

Meteorological Variable names

Short Name	Standard or Long Name	Units
ATMP	air_temperaturedegree_C	degree_C
RH	relative_humidity	percent
SH	specific_humidity	g/kg
SST	sea_water_temperature	degree_C
PSAL	sea_water_practical_salinity	1
WSPDsc	wind_speed (scalar)	meters/second
WSPDv	wind_speed (vector)	meters/second
WDIR	wind_to_direction	degree
SWR	surface_downwelling_shortwave_flux_in_air	W m-2
LWR	surface_downwelling_longwave_flux_in_air	W m-2
RAINtot	thickness_of_rainfall_amount	mm
BPR	air_pressure	millibars

Surface fluxes from ORS sites are calculated with the COARE 3.5 Bulk Flux algorithm (Fairall et al., 1996, 2003, Edson et al., 2012). Data is presented in tables with the following short names.

Flux Variable names

Short Name	Standard or Long Name	Units
QB	sensible_heat_flux	W/m2
QH	latent_heat_flux_in_air	W/m2
QN	net_heat_flux	W/m2
Qs	surface_net_downward_shortwave_flux	W/m2
Ql	surface_net_downward_longwave_flux	W/m2
WSSv	magnitude_of_surface_downward_stress (Wind Stress Magnitude vector average)	N/m^2
WSSc	magnitude_of_surface_downward_stress (Wind Stress Magnitude scalar average)	N/m^2
WSSd	Wind Stress Direction	Degrees

Last updated: October 25, 2016