Use of Monthly Mean Data to Compute Surface Turbulent Fluxes in the Tropical Pacific

Abstract

This study investigates to what extent monthly mean surface meteorological variables can be used to estimate surface turbulent fluxes in the equatorial Pacific. The two-year data from the TOGA TAO moored buoy array are used to compute the monthly mean surface fluxes using both daily mean and monthly mean data as input to the bulk aerodynamic formulas. A unique feature of the dataset is that it covers the western Pacific warm pool, a region of climatologically low surface winds and active convection. The results show that the ocean surface sensible and latent heat fluxes can he estimated using the monthly mean data to a very high accuracy and that the momentum flux is generally underestimated by about 10% when the monthly mean data instead of daily data is used. This study, together with previous studies by other researchers, suggests that the monthly mean data such as those derived from satellite measurements can be used to estimate the surface heat, moisture, and momentum fluxes over the global oceans.