Surface Latent and Sensible Heat over the Pacific Arctic Ocean in Saildrone Observations and Global Reanalysis Products

Climate change is affecting the Arctic at a rate quicker than the rest of the world. This region experiences accelerated rates of warming because of the sea-ice positive feedback loop. We can learn more about this warming by studying air-sea interactions through interpretations of quantitative air-sea heat flux measurements. Latent heat flux is the air-sea energy exchange that occurs due to moisture change, and sensible heat flux is the air-sea energy exchange that occurs due to temperature change. This flux is derived by calculations involving observed and calculated meteorological variables, such as specific humidity, temperature, and wind speed.

There is no consistent system for collecting such measurements in the Arctic because of the seasonal migration of ice, which changes the amount of solid ground a measurement system can be secured upon. Sea ice migration makes conventional observing platforms, such as moored buoys, almost impossible to be used at given fixed locations in the Arctic. Uncrewed surface vehicles, such as wind-driven and solar-powered saildrones, are efficient tools in collecting in situ observations of marine and meteorological variables in difficult-to-access environments. Calculations made by mission observations were compared to those produced by global flux products to determine the accuracy of such products through multivariate regression analysis. By assessing the differences between observations and models, the accuracy of products can be assessed for them to be used to better understand Arctic environments. The observation and model datasets match well but have occasional large discrepancies, which appear to be random with small systemic biases.