Gulf of Mexico regional ocean model at 5km horizontal resolution assimilating satellite and float data with Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) from 2010-04-01 to 2010-10-01

Accurate estimates of ocean circulation are essential for hindcasting and predicting the transport of the pollutants, assessing their environmental impacts, and managing response efforts. A standard method for improving ocean simulations and predictions is data assimilation, which combines observations and dynamical models to obtain more accurate estimates. This dataset represents such a combined estimate and was generated from a data-assimilative circulation model (horizontal resolution ~5 km) of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The circulation model is a configuration of the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS, http://myroms.org) for the entire GOM, initialized on 1 April 2010 and run until 1 October 2010. Satellite and float data were assimilated using a localized Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF). Observations assimilated into the model include Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) from AVISO (Archiving Validation and Interpretation of Satellite Oceanographic Data, http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/), 1/4° SST from the AVHRR (Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer, http://marine.copernicus.eu/), and temperature and salinity profiles from Shay et al., 2011. Daily ensemble means model outputs of sea surface height (SSH), temperature, salinity and velocity fields during April to September 2010 are generated and archived in this dataset. This dataset consists of four NetCDF files containing the model physical daily assembles, a model grid file, and the model's 7-years mean SSH (considered as the model’s mean dynamic topography) that was added to the satellite Sea Level Anomaly for assimilation and comparison. This dataset supports the publication (submitted to Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans). Yu, L., Fennel, K., Wang, B., Laurent, A., Thompson, K. and Shay, L. EnKF-based data assimilation improves simulated circulation in the Gulf of Mexico but does it benefit the simulation of deep-water oil plumes?