Variability of air-sea heat fluxes in the Atlantic Ocean indicated from the WHOI analysis, the SOC analysis, and NWP reanalyses

Variability of air-sea heat fluxes (turbulent latent and sensible heat fluxes, shortwave and longwave radiation fluxes, and sum of the four fluxes) in the Atlantic Ocean during the 1990s is investigated using the heat flux products from WHOI analysis, the SOC analysis, and numerical weather prediction model reanalyses. The WHOI heat flux analysis is recently developed with daily and 1x1 degree resolution for the period from 1988 to 1999. The latent and sensible heat fluxes are produced from using the COARE bulk flux algorithm 2.6a and improved surface meteorological fields obtained from synthesizing satellite and numerical prediction model outputs. The net shortwave and longwave radiations are derived from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) dataset. These heat fluxes were validated with independent in situ flux buoy measurements and their mean over 1988-1997 (the overlapping period between WHOI and SOC databases) agreed considerably well with the SOC flux climatological mean of the same period. In this study we analyze the basin-scale variability of the WHOI heat fluxes, its covariability with SST, and its connection with the atmospheric circulation on seasonal-to-interannual timescales. We compare the results with the NCEP1&2 reanalyses and discuss the impact of heat flux quality on air-sea interaction patterns over the basin scale.