TOGA/COARE
Index

COARE projects
- Enhanced Monitoring
  - Project Summary
  - Mixed layer modeling (abstract)
  - Large-Scale context (abstract)
  - Hydrological Cycle (abstract)
  - Data Report
- Small-Scale Measurements
- IOP
- Air-Sea Fluxes

COARE data
- SEACAT
- CTD

TOGA/COARE related home pages

University of Hawai`i related home pages

Feedback

Upper Ocean Thermocline Response to Wind and Buoyancy Forcing in the Western Equatorial Pacific

Project Summary

As part of the Enhanced Monitoring period (EM; September 1991-May 1994) of the TOGA Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE), an array of thermistor chain and conductivity moorings having surface meteorological packages were deployed and maintained in the climatically important warm pool of the western equatorial Pacific Ocean. This array was maintained for 2 years. Four cruises were conducted to accomplish this, during which CTD measurements were made to help calibrate the array and to further define the scales of temperature and salinity variability within the array.

The data are used to

  1. help determine the scales of surface wind and upper-ocean thermocline variability within the "warm water pool" region,
  2. to obtain time series of the salinity stratification within the nearly isothermal upper layer,
  3. to estimate terms in the upper ocean heat and salinity budgets,
  4. to document and understand the local response to the upper ocean to wind events (especially the strong westerly bursts),
  5. to provide real-time data for experimental operational modelling of the tropical Pacific, and
  6. to determine the minimal array needed for long-term monitoring of the warm pool.

Preliminary results were also used to help refine the experimental plan for oceanic measurements during the intensive observation period (IOP) of COARE, and the enhanced array will contribute to the COARE IOP observational array.

Last modified: December 22, 1997