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Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys
Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami
JANUARY 2011
During January 2011, 461 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys,
66% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents,
were reporting from the tropical Pacific. As seen since September 2010,
the westward SEC was stronger than normal, although the anomalies were not
as dramatic as in the previous month. Westward anomalies of O(10 cm/s)
were present in a broad latitude range from 5-25S. Cold SST anomalies
of -0.5 to -1.5C were measured by most drifters east of the dateline from
25S to 10N, with very cold anomalies of -1.5 to -3.0C common in the region
90-125W, 12-24S. In contrast, warm anomalies of +0.5 to +1.5C were measured
by many drifters in the Kuroshio system.

FIGURE A1.1
a) Top: Movements of drifting buoys in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The linear segments of each trajectory represent a one week displacement.
Trajectories of buoys which have lost their subsurface drogues are gray; those with
drogues are blue.
b) Middle: Monthly mean currents calculated from all buoys 1993-2010 (gray),
and currents measured by the drogued buoys this month (black) smoothed by an
optimal filter.
c) Bottom: Anomalies from the climatological monthly mean currents for this month.
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