Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys
Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami
JANUARY 2013
During January 2013, 325 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 82% with
subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting
from the tropical Pacific. In the eastern Pacific, very strong westward
anomalies of 50-60 cm/s were seen on and north of the equator. Climatological
January currents in this region are ~60 cm/s toward the west, so these
anomalies represented a doubling of the climatological speed. In this region,
a number of drifters measured SSTs colder by -0.5 to -3.0 degrees C from
typical January values.

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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