Three-dimensional regional oceanic element field reconstruction with multiple underwater gliders in the Northern South China Sea

Abstract Regional three-dimensional fine oceanic element field reconstruction and feature surface extraction are of considerable significance to oceanographic research and military application. In this paper, a three-dimensional regional oceanic element field reconstruction method based on spatio-temporal Kriging interpolation is proposed, and is studied experimentally. Using discrete data with uneven temporal and spatial distributions, the spatio-temporal variogram of Kriging interpolation is constructed by adopting an integral model. Then, based on experimental data acquired by seven underwater gliders and satellite remote sensing data in the northern South China Sea (NSCS), three-dimensional regional oceanic temperature and salinity fields are constructed for a particular area of interest. Through comparison with the spatial Kriging method and the spatio-temporal weight method, the cross-verification results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of oceanic element field construction. Finally, feature surfaces are extracted from the three-dimensional oceanic element fields, and can be used to reveal thermohaline characteristics of NSCS. Furthermore, the proposed method can be applied in other areas that construct three-dimensional models from discrete data.