Publications related to the GRACE Missions (no abstracts)

• Sorted by Date • Sorted by Last Name of First Author •

Satellite-derived steric height in the Southern Ocean: trends, variability, and climate drivers

Cocks, Jennifer, Silvano, Alessandro, Naveira Garabato, Alberto C., Dragomir, Oana, Schifano, Noémie, Hogg, Anna E., and Marzocchi, Alice, 2025. Satellite-derived steric height in the Southern Ocean: trends, variability, and climate drivers. Ocean Science, 21(4):1609–1625, doi:10.5194/os-21-1609-2025.

Downloads

• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System  • by the DOI System  •

@ARTICLE{2025OcSci..21.1609C,
       author = {{Cocks}, Jennifer and {Silvano}, Alessandro and {Naveira Garabato}, Alberto C. and {Dragomir}, Oana and {Schifano}, No{\'e}mie and {Hogg}, Anna E. and {Marzocchi}, Alice},
        title = "{Satellite-derived steric height in the Southern Ocean: trends, variability, and climate drivers}",
      journal = {Ocean Science},
         year = 2025,
        month = jul,
       volume = {21},
       number = {4},
        pages = {1609-1625},
     abstract = "{The Southern Ocean circulation plays a central role in regulating the
        global ocean overturning, ventilating the deep ocean, and
        driving sea level rise by delivering heat to Antarctic ice
        shelves. Understanding heat and freshwater content in this
        region is key to monitoring these global processes and
        identifying multi-year changes; however, in situ observations
        are limited and often do not offer the spatial or temporal
        consistency needed to study long-term variability. Perturbations
        in steric height can reveal changes in oceanic heat and
        freshwater content inasmuch as they impact the density of the
        water column. Here, we show for the first time that the monthly
        steric height anomaly of the Southern Ocean south of
        50{\textdegree} S can be assessed using satellite altimetry and
        GRACE gravimetry data from 2002 to 2018. Steric height anomalies
        are validated against in situ Argo float and
        conductivity{\textendash}temperature{\textendash}depth (CTD)
        data from tagged elephant seals. We find good agreement north of
        65{\textdegree} S, but there is increasing uncertainty towards
        the Antarctic continental shelf due to insufficient validation
        data, the leakage error, and anti-aliasing in GRACE. The
        Southern Ocean steric height anomalies capture the expected
        seasonal cycle of low (high) steric height in winter (summer)
        and show regionally variable trends during
        2002{\textendash}2018. We find that the variability in steric
        height is driven predominantly by anomalies in surface heat and
        freshwater content associated with positive and negative phases
        of the two major modes of Southern Hemisphere climate
        variability (the El Ni{\~n}o{\textendash}Southern Oscillation
        and Southern Annular Mode). This steric height dataset provides
        a uniquely comprehensive insight into density anomalies and
        presents opportunities for further analysis of heat and
        freshwater fluxes, changes in stratification, or convective
        regimes across the Southern Ocean.}",
          doi = {10.5194/os-21-1609-2025},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025OcSci..21.1609C},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

Generated by bib2html_grace.pl (written by Patrick Riley modified for this page by Volker Klemann) on Mon Oct 13, 2025 16:16:54

---

Mon Oct 13, F. Flechtner