A Bayesian Approach to an Ocean Circulation Problem

• Activity Number: 495
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
• Author(s): Seo-eun Choi*+ and Fred W. Huffer and Kevin G Speer
• Companies: and Florida State University and Florida State University
• Keywords: Bayesian ; Spatial Statistics ; MCMC ; Gibbs Sampler

Abstract

This paper presents, applies, and evaluates a Bayesian approach to an ocean circulation problem. The objective is to produce a map of ocean velocity in the North Atlantic based on sparse measurements, using a Bayesian approach based on a particular physical model, the Stommel Gulf Stream model, which relates the wind stress curl to the transport stream function. A Gibbs sampler is used to extract features from the posterior velocity field. The equation of the Stommel Gulf Stream model discretized on a two-dimensional grid is used to specify the prior. Comparisons with earlier approaches used by oceanographers are also presented.