TropFlux project - Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
TropFlux project - INCOIS
Citation
Praveen Kumar et al. 2012 in any publication using the heat flux data and Praveen Kumar et al. 2013 in any paper using the wind stress data. Please acknowledge us by using the following sentence: The TropFlux data is produced under a collaboration between Laboratoire d’Océanographie: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN) from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL, Paris, France) and National Institute of Oceanography/CSIR (NIO, Goa, India), and supported by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD, France). TropFlux relies on data provided by the ECMWF Re-Analysis interim (ERA-I) and ISCCP projects.
Abstract
The TropFlux project aims at providing daily, timely, accurate air-sea heat and momentum flux data for the entire 30°N-30°S region.
Wind stresses and the four components of net surface heat flux are currently available for the entire 1979 to March 2013 period. We are currently working on a regular (~monthly) update of the TropFlux product until 3-4 months behind realtime.
TropFlux is largely derived from a combination of ERA-I re-analysis data for turbulent and longwave fluxes, and ISCCP surface radiation data for shortwave flux. All input products are bias- and amplitude-corrected on the basis of Global Tropical Moored Buoy Array data, before surface net heat flux and wind stresses are computed using the COARE v3 bulk algorithm. A precise description of the flux computation procedure, as well as a detailed evaluation against other timely, daily air-sea heat flux alternatives (OAFLUX, NCEP, NCEP2, ERA-I) is provided in Praveen Kumar et al. 2012. The wind stress product is described, evaluated and compared against other widely used products (QuikSCAT, NCEP, NCEP2, ERA-I) in Praveen Kumar et al. 2013
We believe that this product offers the following advantages:
i) better variability and less biases than re-analysis fluxes (and equivalent or slightly better than the best performing products: OAFLUX for heat fluxes and ERA-I for wind stresses) ,
ii) available until August 2013, and soon updated every month, lagging realtime by ~3 months,
iii) a simple estimate of surface shortwave radiation is provided from OLR data, as a near-real-time alternative to the more accurate but irregularly updated ISCCP data.
The TropFlux product has been developed under a collaboration between the Laboratoire d’Océanographie: Expérimentation et Approches Numériques (LOCEAN) from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, France, and National Institute of Oceanography/CSIR India and distributed through Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, India. Bilateral scientific visits to France and India have been supported by Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, France.