Cecelia Ngo
University of California, Riverside
Research Mentor: Chidong Zhang
Project: Observations and Forecasts of Arctic Sea Surface Energy Fluxes
Hi, my name is Cecelia Ngo! I am a rising senior at the University of California, Riverside. I am studying physics. This summer, under the amazing guidance of Dr. Chidong Zhang, I studied and researched air-sea fluxes–latent and sensible. Air-sea fluxes show the way our oceans and atmospheres interact. Latent air sea-fluxes are the changes in humidity and sensible air-sea fluxes show changes in temperature. Our objective was to compare forecast models with observational data of air-sea fluxes. This data was collected from saildrones launched by Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. I specifically looked at saildrone data from 2019 in the Arctic region. The forecast model I used was ECMWF (European Center for Medium-Range Forecasts).
To compare saildrone data with the ECMWF forecast model, I used Python to create many plots. I paired the saildrone data and forecast model together to compare data visually. The time-series for 2019 showed that the forecast model and saildrone data was closest at smaller lead times and became increasingly inaccurate as lead times progressed. The forecast model strayed from the saildrone data from the beginning lead times. This was most likely due to forecasting errors in humidity and temperature. Humidity and temperature are integral to air-sea fluxes. If there are forecasting errors in humidity and temperature, the calculation for air-sea fluxes would also have significant errors.
The saildrones launched by Pacific Marine Environmental Labs allowed data to be collected over long periods of times, in regions that are less accessible for observation. The errors in the forecast model could also be due to lack of observational data from the Arctic.
Having the opportunity to research air-sea fluxes was amazing. This internship taught me so much about coding, atmospheric sciences, and research. In addition, I learned so many lessons from the other interns, mentors, and staff at CICOES. Having my mentor’s guidance made this a truly valuable experience. I am very grateful to have this internship to be my first research experience, and the lessons I learned will help me in future projects.
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