Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2013, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (5): 23-28.doi: 10.11978/j.issn.1009-5470.2013.05.004cstr: 32234.14.j.issn.1009-5470.2013.05.004

Special Issue: 海洋大数据及应用

• Marine Hydrology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Assessment of Aquarius/SAC-D salinity data accuracy in the South China Sea

WANG Xin-xin1, 2, YANG Jian-hong2, ZHAO Dong-zhi2, WANG Xiang1, 2, SUN Guang-lun1, 2   

  1. 1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China; 2. National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center, Dalian 116023, China
  • Received:2012-05-03 Revised:2013-01-21 Online:2013-11-21 Published:2013-11-21

Abstract: This study assesses the accuracy of Aquarius/SAC-D satellite sea surface salinity (SSS) data in the South China Sea using Argo buoy data, and analyzes the influencing factors. The results indicate that the linear relationship of co-located data is not significant. The SSS inversion accuracy in the South China Sea and northeastern waters is 0.62‰ and 0.70‰, respectively. Located at low latitude, the sea surface temperature (SST) in the South China Sea is high, which has a small effect on the accuracy. The factors that influence the SSS accuracy may be the strong breeze, rainfall and land radio frequency interference (RFI), etc. The results show that the SSS retrieval error increases with wind speed when the wind speed is greater than 7 m·s-1, and that the error has a clear ascendant trend. Meanwhile, the South China Sea is seriously contaminated by the land RFI. Even if the Aquarius/SAC-D SSS product has corrected the land RFI in its new Version 1.3. The RFI is not eliminated, and may still have an influence on the accuracy.

Key words: satellite remote sensing, accuracy assessment, sea surface salinity, radio frequency interference, sea surface roughness

CLC Number: 

  • TP722.6