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

OCTOBER 2011

During October 2011, 339 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 52% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting from the tropical Pacific. Between 110W and the date line, weak equatorial westward anomalies of O(10 cm/s) were measured by a number of drifters between the equator and 5S, compared to much stronger anomalies in September. Many drifters west of the date line and between 20S-20N measured SSTs cooler by 0.5 to 1.5C than the climatological October value.