Evolution of Sea-surface temperature and surface meteorological fields in the tropical atlantic ocean during FGGE, 1979: I. Description of surface fields and computation of surface energy fluxes

Abstract

Observations of surface oceanographic and meteorological fields collected during the First GARP Global Experiment (FGGE) in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean have been combined and averaged by month onto a 2° × 2° grid. Monthly distributions of sea-surface temperature, wind speed and direction, air temperature, specific humidity and cloud cover have been generated for the period from December 1978 through November 1979. Net short wave and long wave radiation, and sensible and latent heat flux distributions have been generated from the surface data using the bulk aerodynamic formulas. In 1979, large-scale patterns of all the climatic and heat budget variables are very similar to distributions determined from long-term climatological averages. Positive anomalies of SST in the region of the equatorial cold water tongue represent one region of systematic differences between the 1979 and climatological distributions. The positive SST anomalies are, in general, coincident with negative anomalies in the net oceanic heat gain. Negative heat gain anomalies are primarily caused by positive wind speed anomalies, through increased latent and sensible heat fluxes. © 1985.