Annual Mean Atmospheric Statistics at the Surface of the Tropical Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Long-term annual means and intramonth variances have been calculated for air and sea surface temperature, specific humidity and surface wind components for most 5° ? 5° grids for the Pacific Ocean between 40°S and 30°N. These estimates were calculated from about five million marine weather reports for the years 1957?76. In addition to illustrating maps of these statistics, the annual average mean and eddy meridional fluxes of absolute temperature and specific humidity for the surface layer are portrayed. The calculated divergences of the surface fluxes of temperature and humidity are in good agreement with previously published analyses of rainfall and cloudiness. The possible utility of there flux divergence fields in estimating the patterns of low-level vertical motion and vertically averaged moisture flux divergence is tested.