Abstract
Three-dimensional (3D) empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) are computed and presented for two cases: (i) an atmospheric 3D EOF using the atmospheric reanalysis data from the Earth’s surface of approximately 1000 hPa atmospheric pressure level to the 1.0 hPa level at about 50 kms altitude and (ii) a coupled atmosphere-ocean 3D EOF that includes the top layer of an oceanic reanalysis. These 3D EOFs help better describe the 3D structure of the large-scale climate dynamic patterns, such as the vertical profiles of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The 3D EOF tool developed in this research allows people to quantitatively describe and visually display atmosphere-ocean dynamics, particularly over the tropical Pacific. Computationally, 3D EOFs are built on a 3D covariance matrix that naturally accounts for the covariance between different pressure levels. In this way, 3D EOFs can help answer questions that may be impossible for the conventional 2D EOFs computed layer-by-layer.
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Data and code availability
Both the datasets and computer code are freely available in the GitHub repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7073022.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported (in part) through NOAA Educational Partnership Program/Minority-Serving Institutions award NA22SEC4810016 Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies II. Contents are solely the responsibility of the author(s) and do not represent official views of NOAA or the U.S. Department of Commerce. The lead author Thomas Bui was a NOAA EPP MSI Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies Fellow when the main part of this research was done. Support for the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project version 3 dataset was provided by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science Biological and Environmental Research (BER), by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Program Office, and by the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences Laboratory. The statements contained within the manuscript/research article/poster are not the opinions of the funding agency or the US government, but reflect the authors’ opinions.
Funding
This work was supported by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Cooperative Science Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies (NOAA CESSRST) under the Cooperative Agreement Grant #: NA16SEC4810008. Authors Thomas Bui and Danielle Lafarga received research support from the NOAA CESSRST.
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Danielle Lafarga, Thomas M. Smith, Yuhe T. Song, and Samuel S. P. Shen contributed equally to this work.
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Bui, T.Q., Lafarga, D., Smith, T.M. et al. Calculation, visualization, and interpretation of three-dimensional atmosphere-ocean coupled empirical orthogonal functions using the reanalyses data. Theor Appl Climatol 154, 59–73 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04513-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04513-1