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Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Level From Eastern Pacific
GOES Stations
David B. EnField, NOAA/AOML
Instituto Oceanografico de la Armada Guayaquil, Ecuador
Direccion de Hodrografia y Navigacion de la Marina, Callao, PERU
DECEMBER 2010
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Through
cooperative arrangements with South American institutions, the TOGA
program has maintained a network of nine tide stations and four
meteorological stations in Ecuador, Peru and Chile since the mid
1980's. The stations are maintained by NOAA/AOML and the University of
Hawaii. The hourly data are transmitted to down-link stations via the
GOES satellite in real time and processed. The five-day averages
(pentads) at critical stations give us an effective means of monitoring
coastal conditions with good time resolution and compact data volume.
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The remarkably persistent La Niña condition is well
manifested in SSTs and sea level along the eastern
Pacific boundary. Negative anomalies have continued
almost unmodulated since April 2010, at 1-3 degrees
and about 10 cm below normal, respectively. Only at
Talara in the last half of December, do we see a
increase in SST. This could signal a slow decay of
the La Niña anomalies, or it could merely be the start
of an intraseasonal event, as typically occurs early
in the calendar year.
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Day of Sea Sfc Temperature Sea Level Height (cm)
Dec Baltra Talara Callao Baltra Libertad Callao
------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------
4 ** 15.0 14.3 ** ** 97.5
9 ** 16.4 13.8 ** ** 97.2
14 ** 15.6 14.1 ** ** 100.2
19 ** 18.0 14.9 ** ** 101.7
24 ** 19.8 14.7 ** ** 101.8
29 ** 21.3 14.2 ** ** 104.8
Anomalies
4 ** -3.5 -1.7 ** ** -10.8
9 ** -2.2 -2.3 ** ** -11.4
14 ** -3.1 -2.1 ** ** -8.3
19 ** -0.8 -1.3 ** ** -7.8
24 ** 0.7 -1.6 ** ** -8.2
29 ** 2.0 -2.1 ** ** -5.7
For further information contact David.Enfield@noaa.gov
or go to http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/epac/
** - Data missing due to hardware failure
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FIGURE A1.5
Five-day averages of Sea Surface
Temperature (SST, C) and Sea Level Height (SLH, cm) from GOES receiving
stations in Ecuador and Peru. Dashed line and shading show climatology
departures.
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