Introduction
Overview
We present here satellite products, including time series of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea height anomaly (SHA) over several geographic regions.
Satellite Data
- Sea Surface Temperature
SST data from different sources are used here. SST data from 1985 to mid-1998 are obtained from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the NOAA polar orbiting satellite (More info).
For more recent years (1998-2002), data obtained from observations made by a radiometer on board the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite are used. The TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) is a well-calibrated radiometer that contains lower frequency channels required for SST retrievals (More info). The TMI data are provided as daily sets, available from December 1997 to the present.
Since May, 2002, data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) aboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft are available and are also used (More info).
- Sea Height Anomaly
Gridded seven days delay time (DT) data are generally available until six month prior to the current date. We use the inhomogeneous DT data set from AVISO. For more recent dates, we use the near real time (NRT) daily data set (More info).
back to topGeographic Regions
Products that are key for weather and climate studies and that derived from these parameters are presented for several regions.
- Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) dynamics is dominated by the Loop Current (LC), the main feature of the circulation in the eastern GOM. The LC episodically sheds warm-core eddies (anticyclonic rings), that generally translate westward with intense currents. This region is also of importance because the LC and its associated ring have been linked to hurricane intensification.
- El Niño South Oscillation regions 1.2, 3, 3.4 and 4
Year-to-year variability associated with the El Niño South Oscillation (ENSO) is governed by large-scale ocean dynamics and coupled ocean-atmosphere interactions, which result in alternating periods of anomalously warm El Niño conditions and cold La Niña conditions every 2-7 years. From the study of the ENSO phenomena much has been learned about the mechanism of climate variability in the tropical pacific, including the active contribution of upper-ocean dynamics. All ENSO theoretical studies assign an important role to upper ocean dynamics and heat storage, as the ocean accounts for much of the "inertia" of the coupled system and introduces temporal phase lags that help sustain interannual oscillations.
Several regions have been defined to study the ENSO. We present products for four ENSO regions defined as follows:
- Atlantic 3 region
While ENSO accounts for the largest single contribution to interannual climate variability globally, it is not the only source, particularly for the extratropics and the Indian and Atlantic ocean sectors of the tropics. A number of studies have documented climatic anomalies in regions surrounding the tropical Atlantic showing clear relationships between regional climate anomalies and tropical basin-scale patterns of Atlantic SST. Many of the observed anomalies are accompanied by extreme precipitations in the tropical Atlantic and several regions of Africa.
The Atlantic 3 (ATL3) region is delimited by 3°N-3°S, 20°W-0°
- North Atlantic region
A region in the north Atlantic ocean (ATLN) is also considered and products are developed for this region because of its importance in the hurricane formation.
The ATLN region is delimited by 40°N-10°N, 80°W-20°W
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