DATA

Using an objective method, the multi-satellite wind vector, wind stress, latent and heat flux estimated over swaths are used to calculate weekly- and monthly averaged flux fields on 1 degree grid between 80°S and 80°N. The surface parameter fields are calculated at global scale, excluding sea ice areas. In order to determine the location of sea ice, the IFREMER/CERSAT weekly sea ice concentration is used. This parameter is estimated for both Arctic and Antarctic from the daily brightness temperature maps from SSM/I. For more details, see Ezraty et al. (2006). Data are freely available at IFREMER/CERSAT: ftp://ftp.ifremer.fr/ifremer/cersat/products/gridded/psi-concentration/.

The turbulent flux fields are calculated during the period March 1992 through March 2006. They are considered as data test that will provide useful insight for production of high space and time resolutions at global and regional scales.

Data are available at IFREMER and freely distributed upon request (Contact: Abderrahim.Bentamy@ifremer.fr, Denis.croize-fillon@ifremer.fr, and jean-francois.piolle@ifremer.fr ). This study is performed within MERCATOR (http://www.mercator-ocean.fr/) and MERSEA projects.

The data files are in NetCDF format supported by several scientific softwares.

The upward (downward) heat fluxes are considered positive (negative).

The file name is as TSATFLUX_yyyymmdd-yyyymmdd, where yyyy, mm, and dd are year, month, and day, respectively. It contains the gridded surface parameters: wind vector; wind stress, latent, and sensible heat fluxes.