The global air-sea fluxes of momentum, latent and sensible heat, radiation, and freshwater (precipitation-evaporation) are required for driving ocean models and validating coupled ocean-atmosphere global models. Wind stress is the major forcing for driving the oceanic circulation, while evaporation is a key component of hydrological cycle and surface heat budget. We have produced a 13.5-year (July 1987-December 2000) dataset containing daily, monthly, and climatological surface fluxes of momentum, latent and sensible heat over the global oceans from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) radiance measurements. This dataset is called version 2 Goddard Satellite-based Surface Turbulent Fluxes (GSSTF-2). The GSSTF-2 has a spatial resolution of 1.0o x 1.0o lat-long. In addition, evaporation has been combined with the satellite-retrieved precipitation to produce monthly freshwater fluxes over the global ocean for the same period. Daily turbulent fluxes are derived from the SSM/I surface winds and surface air humidity, and 2-m air and sea surface temperatures (SST) of the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, using an improved stability-dependent bulk flux algorithm based on the surface layer similarity theory.

Hourly fluxes computed from the GSSTF-2 bulk flux algorithm using the observed hourly input variables validate well against those of ten experiments observed by the research ships over the tropical and midlatitude oceans. In addition, daily wind stresses, latent heat fluxes, wind speeds, surface air humidity and SSTs of the GSSTF-2 compare reasonably well with those of the collocated in situ measurements of the ten experiments. The global distributions of 1988-2000 annual- and seasonal-mean turbulent fluxes show reasonable patterns related to the atmospheric general circulation and its seasonal variations. The comparison of zonally-averaged wind stress and latent heat fluxes of the GSSTF-2 with those of other satellite products as well as the NCEP/NCAR and ECMWF reanalyses for the annual mean and seasonal variations during 1992-93 will be discussed. The turbulent fluxes of the GSSTF-2 are useful for climate studies, forcing of ocean models, and validation of coupled ocean-atmosphere global models and can be accessed through the NASA/GSFC DAAC (http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/CAMPAIGN_DOCS/hydrology/hd_main.html).