The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences

2027 Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences

January 12-15, 2027

Resolving Submesoscale Currents from SWOT Altimetry via Physics-Guided Deep Learning
ID:976 Poster Presentation

2027-01-15 17:45 (China Standard Time)

Session:Session 9 - Ocean Dynamics in the SWOT Era: New Methods, Discoveries, Insights and Challenges

Abstract
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission provides two-dimensional sea surface height (SSH) observations at kilometer-scale resolution, extending satellite altimetry toward finescale ocean variability. Estimating surface currents from these observations remains difficult at submesoscales, where the flow is not strictly geostrophic and SSH contains contributions from both balanced and unbalanced motions. Internal tides and internal gravity waves further complicate the relationship between SSH and the balanced circulation, introducing ambiguity into conventional geostrophic retrievals. As a result, extracting the nonlinear, ageostrophic submesoscale dynamics from snapshot SSH data becomes inherently more difficult due to the underlying physics, calling for alternative approaches that can disentangle the competing contributions. We develop a physics-guided deep learning model to estimate balanced surface velocity from a single SSH snapshot. The model is trained using the tide-resolving LLC4320 simulation in the Kuroshio Extension, with the balanced and unbalanced components separated through a dynamical decomposition. Total SSH is used as input, and the corresponding balanced surface velocity is used as the supervised target. Extensive validation on independent LLC4320 samples shows that the proposed framework faithfully reconstructs the dominant spatial patterns of submesoscale balanced currents and preserves their finescale kinetic energy signatures. The trained model is then applied to SWOT Level‑3 SSH observations over the Kuroshio Extension. The resulting velocity fields reveal narrow jets, filamentary structures, and sharpened velocity gradients. By contrast, such features are either absent or heavily smoothed in conventional altimetry‑derived products. The results demonstrate that physics‑guided deep learning can effectively exploit the high‑resolution SSH information provided by SWOT and reduces the ambiguity caused by unbalanced SSH variability. The proposed framework provides a nonlinear remote‑sensing retrieval strategy that extracts dynamically meaningful current information from a single SWOT SSH snapshot, offering a new pathway for utilizing SWOT measurements to investigate submesoscale ocean circulation in energetic regions where direct velocity observations remain sparse.
Speaker
Zhenbo Liu Xiamen University

Author
zhenbo liu Xiamen University

    Important Dates

    • Jan 30

      2026

      Session / Event proposals open

    • Mar 31

      2026

      Session / Event proposals close
      (Extended to April 7)

    • Apr 30

      2026

      Session acceptance notifications

    • Apr 30

      2026

      Abstract submissions & registration open

    • Jun 30

      2026

      Abstract submissions close
      (Extended to July 21)

    • Aug 31

      2026

      Abstract acceptance notifications

    • Sep 15

      2026

      Scientific program released

    • Oct 15

      2026

      Early bird registration closes

    • Jan 12–15

      2027

      XMAS 2027