Francois Schmitt (CNRS, Univ. Lille, Univ. Littoral Cote d’Opale, UMR 8187, LOG, Laboratoire d'Océanologie et de Géosciences, F 62930 Wimereux, France, France); Jianyu Hu (State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China, China); Yongxiang Huang (State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China, China)

The integral length scale of a turbulent velocity is treated as the characteristic scale of the largest scale of motions in the turbulent flow. It is a key parameter in turbulent theory and numerical simulations. The ocean surface waves show complex turbulence-like dynamics. In this work, the integral length scale of ocean surface waves provided by the China France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSAT) is examined. The results show that the integral length scales possess evident spatial and temporal variations, with a mean value around 100 km. More precisely, the integral length scales are larger in mid-latitudes as compared to the ones in tropical regions; the scales observed in the Southern Hemisphere are larger than those in the Northern Hemisphere. For the seasonal differences, larger scales are found in winter than in summer. In addition, the differences are larger in the Northern Hemisphere than the ones in the Southern Hemisphere due to the continents. The results presented in this work may be applicable to oceanic models, and also extend our understanding of ocean surface turbulent motions.