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

OCTOBER 2022

During October 2022, 207 satellite-tracked surface drifting buoys were reporting from the tropical Pacific. Westward anomalies of ~1 m/s were measured by three near-equatorial drifters at 160-170W, possibly associated with a mesoscale feature. rather than a broader-scale anomaly. Several drifters at 10-20S, 120-140W exhibited westward anomalies, but this pattern was not seen by drifters further west in this latitude band. Elsewhere, currents were close to their climatological October 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.