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The temporal correlation is higher in the northern extratropics than in the south for all variables, with the contrast being especially large for da Silva as a result of more missing ship observations in the south. The da Silva has extremely low temporal correlation and large differences with GSSTF2 for all variables in the southern extratropics, indicating that da Silva hardly produces a realistic variability in these variables. The NCEP has extremely low temporal correlation (0.27) and large spatial variations of differences with GSSTF2 for QS-Q10m in the tropics, which causes the low correlation for LHF. Over the tropics, the HOAPS mean LHF is significantly smaller than GSSTF2 by ~31% (37 W m-2), whereas the other two datasets are comparable to GSSTF2. This is because the HOAPS has systematically smaller LHF than GSSTF2 in space, while the other two datasets have very large spatial variations of large positive and negative LHF differences with GSSTF2 to cancel and to produce smaller regional-mean differences. Based on comparison with high-quality flux observations, we conclude that the GSSTF2 latent heat flux, surface air humidity, and winds are likely to be more realistic than the other three flux datasets examined, although those of GSSTF2 are still subject to regional biases.
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