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
  
• Thermistor Chain Data  A1.2
  
• TAO/TRITON Array (a)  A1.3
  
• TAO/TRITON Array (b)  A1.4
  
• East Pac. SST & Sea Level  A1.5
  
• Pacific Wind stress  A1.6
  
• Surface Currents (a)  A1.7
  
• Surface Currents (b)  A1.8
  
  

Tropical Pacific Drifting Buoys

Rick Lumpkin / Mayra Pazos, AOML, Miami

OCTOBER 2010

During October 2010, 501 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 72% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting from the tropical Pacific. The westward NEC and SEC were all stronger than normal in October, as they were in September, while the NECC had returned to its normal October speeds. Strong equatorial anomalies persisted from previous months, but were not well observed by the drifter array. Cold SST anomalies of -0.5 to -1.5C were measured by most drifters east of the dateline from 20S to 10N, with very cold anomalies of -1.5 to -3.0C common in the western edge of that range. In contrast, warm anomalies of +0.5 to +3.0C were measured by drifters in the Kuroshio system with warm anomalies of +0.5 to +1.5C common in the southwest tropical Pacific.

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 1993-2002 (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.