Improved GODAS reanalysis with MOM5 and impact of altimeter assimilation

The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) produces operational reanalysis products based on the Global Ocean Data Assimilation System (GODAS) with the Modular Ocean Model (MOM3/MOM4p0d) as a physical model and 3D-Var as the data assimilation method. The Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) also produces operational ocean analysis with the same GODAS with MOM4p0d. In this study, GODAS is upgraded with MOM5. The improved reanalysis is compared with respect to the EN4 and Ocean ReAnalysis System 5 (ORAS5) for the subsurface temperature and salinity. The microwave-based satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) is employed for the independent evaluation of the reanalysis SST products. We have assimilated observed temperature and salinity profiles from all in situ platforms over the global ocean and also assimilated along-track sea level anomaly from altimeter (Jason1 and Jason2) to produce the improved reanalysis. There is a significant improvement in the SST with biases of temperatures reduced from 1.5 to ~ 0.2 °C as compared to without assimilation. Moreover, a significant improvement is found in the subsurface temperature and salinity fields over the northwest Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, Nino 3.4, and Indian Ocean thermocline ridge regions. The biases in this new, improved reanalysis are even lower than ORAS5 when compared with EN4 analysis. Thermocline depth also shows improvement in terms of better representation and capturing seasonal variability. Altimeter assimilation further reduces Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) in SST over the global ocean. We also show the improvement in the new reanalysis with respect to the reanalysis based on MOM4p0d.