The Persistence Of Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies In The North Atlantic And North Pacific Oceans

This book focuses on two major challenges in the climate sciences: 1) to describe the decadal-to-centennial variations in instrumental and proxy records; and 2) to distinguish between anthropogenic variations and natural variability. The National Taiwan University invited some of the world's leading experts across the areas of observational analysis, mathematical theory, and modeling to discuss these two issues. The outcome of the meeting is the 23 chapters in this book that review the state of the art in theoretical, observational and modeling research on internal, unforced and externally forced climate variability. The main conclusion of this research is that internal climate variability on decadal and longer time scales is so large that sidestepping it may lead to false estimates of the climate's sensitivity to anthropogenic forcing.World Scientific Series on Asia-Pacific Weather and Climate is indexed in SCOPUS.

Sea temperature data in the area bounded by the west coast of North America and longitude 150 degrees W. and latitude 20 degrees N. to 54 degrees N. and temperature data at four coastal stations along the west coast of North America are presented in two parts. Part I consists of 12 monthly average charts based on data from 1947 to 1958, and Part II consists of 144 monthly anomaly charts derived from the average charts.

Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies from previous sources have been related to subsurface temperature anomalies obtained from BT's at six positions in the Northeast Pacific. In this manner some understanding of the value of SST anomalies as indicators of ocean energy states is achieved. Results show that for about 50% of the time, the SST anomaly generally extended to depths of 100 meters or more. November through April were found to be the months most favorable for the occurrence of these deeply penetrating anomalies. Summertime SST anomalies were determined to be shallow features of less than 40 meters and were not indicative of subsurface heat content. A close linear relationship was observed year round between SST anomalies and heat content anomalies in the top 30 meters of the ocean. There was little correlation between SST and heat content anomalies in the 91-122 meter layer. (Author).

Equations for computing mean temperature at 400 feet in the North Atlantic in terms of mean annual surface temperature and its amplitude have been derived from BT data collected at five ocean weather stations and in three other widely separated areas. By use of temperature anomaly values at 400 feet, as related to mean surface temperature anomalies, the temperature at 400 feet can be predicted several days in advance with an approximation of 1.1 F. (Author).

This volume offers a comprehensive survey and a close analysis of efforts to develop actionable climate information in support of vital decisions for climate adaptation, risk management and policy. Arising from submissions and discussion at the 2011 Open Science Conference (OSC) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), the book addresses research and intellectual challenges which span the full range of Program activities.