Response of simulated sea surface temperature and sea level to satellite-derived precipitation

An ocean general circulation model has been used to investigate the response of simulated sea surface temperature (SST) and sea level to satellite-derived precipitation. For this, the precipitation forcing of the control run, obtained from the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), has been replaced by precipitation derived by the Special Sensor Microwave Imager. The simulations have been compared with observations from tropical moored buoys and satellites, and the comparison statistics clearly shows that the satellite product outperforms the NCEP product. Although the impact of rainfall on SST is significant, there are regions where the SST is rather insensitive to the rainfall. In those regions advective effects come into play for cancelling the rainfall impact. Moreover, the impact on sea level is not as marginal as seems to have been suggested earlier. Finally, rainfall has been found to leave its signature on surface currents also.