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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.
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