Articles | Volume 15, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-543-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-543-2019
Research article
 | 
22 May 2019
Research article |  | 22 May 2019

Data assimilation of Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) observations into the Mercator Ocean operational system: focus on the El Niño 2015 event

Benoît Tranchant, Elisabeth Remy, Eric Greiner, and Olivier Legalloudec

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Geosci. Model Dev., 9, 1037–1064, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1037-2016,https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-1037-2016, 2016

Cited articles

Alory, G., Delcroix, T., Téchiné, P., Diverrès, D., Varillon, D., Cravatte, S., Gouriou, Y., Grelet, J., Jacquin, S., Kestenare, E., Maes, C., Morrow, R., Perrier, J., Reverdin, G., and Roubaud, F.: The French contribution to the voluntary observing ships network of sea surface salinity, Deep-Sea Res. Pt. 1, 105, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.DSR.2015.08.005, 2015. 
Ashok, K. and Yamagata, T.: The El Niño with a difference, Nature, 461, 481–484, 2009. 
Benkiran, M. and Greiner, E.: Impact of the Incremental Analysis Updates on a Real-Time System of the North Atlantic Ocean, J. Atmos. Ocean. Tech., 25, 2055–2073, 2008. 
Bloom, S. C., Takacs, L. L., da Silva, A. M., and Ledvina, D.: Data assimilation using incremental analysis updates, Mon. Weather Rev., 124, 1256–1271, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-04932, 1996. 
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Short summary
This work deals with the use of sea surface salinity measurements from space in the context of operational oceanography. The salinity plays an important role in the ocean–atmosphere coupling, especially when an El Niño event occurs in the tropical Pacific. However, it is still difficult to use such data in ocean models due to a large extent to large-scales biases. This study shows that from recent data with a suitable bias correction scheme, it is possible to improve our forecast skill.