Best Atmospheric pressure model to correct SSH

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Lingchao He (River)

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Sep 17, 2025, 2:51:53 PM (10 days ago) Sep 17

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Hi all,

I wonder if there are any good atmospheric pressure models to correct new ESPC-V-D02 SSH variable? I tried NOAA https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html, but the result has low correlation with observation.

Also, I want to calculate bottom pressure using ESPC, and I use SSH - Steric SSH + SLP. Does this equation look reasonable?

Thank you very much for any help!

River

Alan Wallcraft

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Sep 17, 2025, 8:18:25 PM (10 days ago) Sep 17

to HYCOM.org Forum, Lingchao He (River)

The best value we have for bottom pressure anomaly is SSH - Steric SSH. This includes the contribution to bottom pressure anomaly from atmospheric pressure anomaly.

I'm not sure why you want to remove the effect of atmospheric pressure, but its effect on SSH is approximately an inverse barometer:

η_ib = - P_atm / (rho_0 * g)

Make sure you have the units right, the above are for height (m) not pressure.

I don't know how well it would work, but you could use the tidal analysis to subtract the tides from SSH - Steric SSH since the majority of what is left at large scales is atmospheric pressure effects. See Tidal Analysis of ESPC-D-V02