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 2014

During October 2014, 357 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys, 84% with subsurface drogues attached for measuring mixed layer currents, were reporting from the tropical Pacific. The strong eastward anomalies in the eastern equatorial Pacific, seen in August and September, were no longer present in October: in the well-sampled eastern tropical Pacific, all major currents were close to their climatological October strengths. A few drifters in the western tropical Pacific suggested very strong (>50 cm/s) eastward anomalies at 4-5N, but denser sampling would be required to verify the robustness and zonal extent of this anomaly

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.