Sea Surface Height Variability in the Rio de la Plata Estuary and the Adjacent Continental Shelf

MARTIN SARACENO

Workshop; 5th CAWS; 2011

Sea Surface Height Variability in the Rio de la Plata Estuary and the Adjacent Continental Shelf Saraceno, M.1; Simionato, C.G.2; Bedessem, B.3; D´Onofrio, E.E.4 1Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; 2CIMA/CONICET-UBA, Argentina; 3Ecole Normale Superieur de Lyon, France; 4Servicio de Hidrografia Naval, Argentina High standard deviation values of Sea Surface Height (SSH) of both gridded and along track satellite products in the Rio de la Plata estuary have been usually associated to the fact that non-appropriate corrections have been applied to altimetry data. In this work we first estimate the accuracy of the latest generation of gridded altimetry data produced by AVISO (Archiving, Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic data) and by CTOH (Centre de Topographie des Oceans et de l´Hydrosphere) along the T/P and Jason 1 tracks by comparison with in-situ data. Then we indentify the influence of the Rio de la Plata estuary´s plume associated with the dominant wind’s variability in the SSH data. Decomposition in Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF) of the seasonal cycle suggests that the first two modes of variability correspond to the first two modes found with SST satellite data in the region (Simionato et al., 2010). The first mode is related to the radiative cycle while the second mode reflects the effect of the winds on the plume. On intraseasonal time scales negative anomalies along the northern coast of the estuary are observed, which seem to be related to upwelling events also identified on SST data. Interannual variability is also observed, displaying positve/negative anomalies in association with El Niño/La Niña events. Simionato, C. G., M. L. Clara Tejedor, C. Campetella, R. Guerrero, and D. Moreira (2010), Patterns of sea surface temperature variability on seasonal to sub-annual scales at and offshore the Rio de la Plata estuary, Continental Shelf Research, 30(19), 1983-1997.