Spatio-temporal segmentation of mesoscale ocean surface dynamics using satellite data

Multi-satellite measurements of altimeter-derived Sea Surface Height (SSH) and Sea Surface Temperature (SST) provide a wealth of information about ocean circulation, especially mesoscale ocean dynamics which may involve strong spatio-temporal relationships between SSH and SST fields. Within an observation-driven framework, we investigate the extent to which mesoscale ocean dynamics may be decomposed into a superimposition of dynamical modes, characterized by different local regressions between SSH and SST fields. Formally, we develop a novel latent class regression model to identify dynamical modes from joint SSH and SST observation series. Applied to the highly dynamical Agulhas region off South Africa, we demonstrate and discuss the geophysical relevance of the proposed mixture model to achieve a spatio-temporal segmentation of the upper ocean dynamics.