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

JULY 2014

During July 2014, 332 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 91% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting from the tropical Pacific. The strong westward anomalies seen in the eastern equatorial Pacific in June persisted in July, with a monthly average of as much as 50 cm/s westward compared to climatological July values. 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 July 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.