CoAuthors

Ananda Pascual (IMEDEA, Spain); Simón Ruiz (IMEDEA, Spain); Antonio Sanchez-Roman (IMEDEA, Spain)

Improvements in forecast modelling products require ongoing feedback from users to providers. Here, using gridded altimetric sea surface height as a reference, we assess three such products from CMEMS that cover the western Mediterranean for the period 2013-2016. We report on the mesoscale content of these operational models using standard statistical analysis and a robust eddy tracking tool that uses sea surface height as input. Properties including eddy position, polarity, radius and amplitude are produced for each product; these enable construction of 2D and 3D eddy composites of model prognostic variables such as temperature and salinity. 3D eddy composites in the anticyclonic gyres of the Alboran Sea illustrate the strong fronts that are characteristic of this region. The models that include data assimilation approximate most closely the eddy distributions observed with altimetry. In addition, the CMEMS products are evaluated for specific dates, using along-track altimetry and in situ high-resolution multiplatform observations from different observational experiments carried out recently in the western Mediterranean (e.g., ALBOREX). This study is a contribution to the MedSUB project, funded by Copernicus Marine Service within the Service Evolution 21-SE-CALL1.