Non-Tidal Ocean Center-of-Mass Variations

Large-scale ocean mass distributions induce time-variations in the oceans's center-of-mass that contribute to offsets between the center-of-mass of the whole Earth including its outer geophysical fluid layers, and the center-of-figure that is typically relized by geodetic instruments attached to the crust of the solid Earth (Blewitt, 2003). The offset is also commonly referred to as geocenter motion.

Oceanic Model Experiments

Name  Ocean Model Data Span  Resolution Comments
dong97_mom.cm MOM Feb 1992 to Dec 1994 3 days -
dong97_micom.cm MICOM Feb 1992 to Dec 1994 3 days -
c20010701.cm MITgcm Jan 1980 to Mar 2002 1 day -
ECCO_50yr.cm MITgcm Jan 1949 to Dec 2002 10 days -
ECCO_kf049f.cm MITgcm Jan 1993 to Mar 2006 1 day -
ECCO_kf066a2.cm MITgcm Jan 1993 to Dec 2008 1 day -
ECCO_kf066b.cm MITgcm Jan 1993 to Dec 2008 1 day -
ECCO_kf079.cm MITgcm Jan 1993 to Mar 2020 1 day -
ECCO_kf080i.cm MITgcm Jan 1993 to Mar 2020 1 day -
ECCO_v4r3_noFWF.cm MITgcm Jan 1992 to Dec 2015 1 hour w/o FWF
ECCO_v4r3_yesFWF.cm MITgcm Jan 1992 to Dec 2015 1 hour with FWF
ECCO_v4r4b_noFWF.cm MITgcm Jan 1992 to Dec 2017 1 hour w/o FWF; corrected in June 2021
ECCO_v4r4b_yesFWF.cm MITgcm Jan 1992 to Dec 2017 1 hour with FWF; corrected in June 2021

All available experiments can be downloaded here.

*FWF: Net-effects of freshwater fluxes from continental (and atmospheric) storages into the oceans are explicitly considered.

Blewitt, G. (2003), Self-consistency in reference frames, geocenter definition, and surface loading of the solid Earth. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 108 (B2), 2103.

Contact

Dr. Henryk Dobslaw
Earth System Modelling