title: A reanalysis dataset of the South China Sea.
abstract: Ocean reanalysis provides a temporally continuous and spatially gridded four-dimensional estimate of the ocean state for a better understanding of the ocean dynamics and its spatial/temporal variability. Here we present a 19-year (1992-2010) high-resolution ocean reanalysis dataset of the upper ocean in the South China Sea (SCS) produced from an ocean data assimilation system. A wide variety of observations, including in-situ temperature/salinity profiles, ship-measured and satellite-derived sea surface temperatures, and sea surface height anomalies from satellite altimetry, are assimilated into the outputs of an ocean general circulation model using a multi-scale incremental three-dimensional variational data assimilation scheme, yielding a daily high-resolution reanalysis dataset of the SCS. Comparisons between the reanalysis and independent observations support the reliability of the dataset. The presented dataset provides the research community of the SCS an important data source for studying the thermodynamic processes of the ocean circulation and meso-scale features in the SCS, including their spatial and temporal variability.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Guangzhou 510301, China ; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Xuezhi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Shiqiu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, California 91109, USA.
authors.forename: Zhijin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Yiquan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Guangzhou 510301, China.
authors.forename: Rongyu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D064308:Ecological Parameter Monitoring; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D054712:Salinity; D012623:Seawater; D013696:Temperature