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

NOVEMBER 2022

During November 2022, 197 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys were reporting from the tropical Pacific. Eastward anomalies of ~25 cm/s were measured by a number of drifters in the Nort Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) at 7-9N across the basin, indicating an acceleration of the easward NECC. Three drifters measured westward anomalies of up to 50 cm/s at 120-130W, 1-3N, possibly associated with an instability wave. Elsewhere, currents were close to their climatological November values.

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.