Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys
Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami
FEBRUARY 2014
During February 2014, 239 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 86% with
subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting
from the tropical Pacific. In the eastern near-equatorial at 110-120W, five
closely-spaced drifters moved very quickly westward, 40 cm/s faster than
climatological February currents, perhaps in response to a single mesoscale
feature such as a TIW. Elsewhere, currents were close to their climatological
mean 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.
|