Seasonal Heat Budget in the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

The local seasonal variations of heat content in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean are found to be about ten times larger than the seasonal variations of the heat gain from the atmosphere through the surface, and are not confined to the upper mixed layer. This annual cycle of heat content appears to be mainly due to vertical movements of the thermocline associated with the dynamical response of the ocean to the seasonally varying winds. The heat storage variance is large in the western equatorial Atlantic where the sea surface temperature variance is small because the thermocline is deep. In the eastern equatorial Atlantic, where the thermocline is shallow, the sea surface temperature has a large variance and the heat storage a small variance.