Tropical Highlights

  Table of Atmospheric Indices  (Table 1)

  Table of Oceanic Indices  (Table 2)

  Time Series

  Time-Longitude Sections

  Mean & Anomaly Fields

  Appendix 1: Outside Contributions

• Tropical Drifting Buoys  A1.1
  
• Pacific Wind stress  A1.2
  
• Surface Currents (a)  A1.3
  
• Surface Currents (b)  A1.4
  
  

Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys

Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami

MAY 2014

During May 2014, 272 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 86% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting from the tropical Pacific. Similar to the pattern seen in April, strong eastward anomalies of 30-60 cm/s were present at 100-120W in the latitude band 2S-6N, with the strongest anomalies at 3-4N. Not enough drifters were located in the western near-equatorial Pacific to determine the zonal extent of these anomalies. At higher latitudes, currents were near their climatological May strengths.

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.