A functional-data approach to the Argo data

The Argo data is a modern oceanography dataset that provides unprecedented global coverage of temperature and salinity measurements in the upper 2,000 meters of depth of the ocean. We study the Argo data from the perspective of functional data analysis (FDA). We develop spatio-temporal functional kriging methodology for mean and covariance estimation to predict temperature and salinity at a fixed location as a smooth function of depth. By combining tools from FDA and spatial statistics, including smoothing splines, local regression, and multivariate spatial modeling and prediction, our approach provides advantages over current methodology that consider pointwise estimation at fixed depths. Our approach naturally leverages the irregularly-sampled data in space, time, and depth to fit a space-time functional model for temperature and salinity. The developed framework provides new tools to address fundamental scientific problems involving the entire upper water column of the oceans such as the estimation of ocean heat content, stratification, and thermohaline oscillation. For example, we show that our functional approach yields more accurate ocean heat content estimates than ones based on discrete integral approximations in pressure. Further, using the derivative function estimates, we obtain a new product of a global map of the mixed layer depth, a key component in the study of heat absorption and nutrient circulation in the oceans. The derivative estimates also reveal evidence for density inversions in areas distinguished by mixing of particularly different water masses.