1 / 17

SST Observations of Tropical Instability Waves

SST Observations of Tropical Instability Waves. Data Analysis Yang Liu Elizabeth Wong Adam Chambers. Intro to Tropical Instability Waves. A regular pattern of westward propagating waves that form near the equator at the interface between areas of warm and cold sea surface temperatures

kerem
Download Presentation

SST Observations of Tropical Instability Waves

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. SST Observations of Tropical Instability Waves Data Analysis Yang Liu Elizabeth Wong Adam Chambers

  2. Intro to Tropical Instability Waves • A regular pattern of westward propagating waves that form near the equator at the interface between areas of warm and cold sea surface temperatures • Present in Atlantic, but easier to see in the Pacific • Average period of ~30 days and wavelength of ~1000-2000 km

  3. The Data • Product: Foundation SST • Resolution: ~.09 Degree (~9 kilometer) Gridded (4096 x 2048) • Derived from: MW SSTs (AMSR-E, TMI) and IR (MODIS) SSTs • Time Coverage:  Global (90N to 90S):    • 2010-Jan-1 through 2011-Jan-1 • IR allows higher spatial resolution, and SST near land. However, IR input is less accurate than MW due to cloud contamination. Blending MW and IR enables greater coverage and higher accuracy than IR only SSTs

  4. Rebinning • Data can resolve small scale features. • By rebinning we see that many small scale features are no longer visible • play movie

  5. Scalefactors Variance decreases as scalefactor increases Data: June, Long: 180W-90W, Lat: -20-20

  6. Tropical Instability Waves begin to form in June

  7. El Nino and Wind Variability • ENSO has a strong influence on TIW formation • El Nino conditions lessen TIW formation • La Nina conditions strengthen TIW formation SST Anomalies in the Pacific NOAA

  8. Freq.

  9. High-Pass Filter • Filter used to see SST Anomalies

  10. SST (unfiltered, all of 2010) SST Anomalies (filtered, all of 2010) Phase speed ~0.7m/sec

  11. SST anomaly June 1 2010 SST anomaly June 1 2010 SST anomaly June 1 2010

  12. wavenumber wavenumber wavenumber

  13. Lat: -10 – 10Long: 135W – 100W

  14. Future Work • Studies have linked Tropical Instability Waves to Wind, Water Vapor, and Precipitation (Caltabiano et. al 2005) • Investigate these relationships…

  15. Conclusions • High resolution data was used to study Tropical Instability Waves • TIW most likely to form when trade winds are lessened/reversed in June-September • As suggested by Chelton(2000), TIW more intense in the northern hemisphere • Observed wavelength and period of TIW was ~2000-5000km and ~30 days when analyzed over one day. Similar results were obtained when analyzed over June-December • Understanding the relationship between TIW and wind/water vapor/precipitation will require further investigation

More Related