Pacific Subtropical Cell variability in the SODA 2.0.2/3 assimilation Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • A new version of SODA, which covers the time period 1958-2005, is used to analyze decadal variability of the Pacific Subtropical Cell (STC) circulation. The analysis is based on transport time series across 9S and 9N. At the interannual time scale, STC convergence anomalies decrease during El Nios and increase during La Nias through Sverdrup transport convergence changes. At decadal time scales, the assimilation shows a reduction of interior STC convergence of about 8 Sv from the 1960s to the 1990s and a subsequent rebound into the early 2000s by a similar amount, in agreement with the STC tendencies reported earlier from geostrophic section analysis, and associated with the occurrence and intensity of ENSO events among the decades analyzed. The results are compared with, and differ significantly from those obtained by the German ECCO (GECCO) assimilation. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.

published proceedings

  • GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS

author list (cited authors)

  • Schott, F. A., Stramma, L., Wang, W., Giese, B. S., & Zantopp, R.

citation count

  • 23

complete list of authors

  • Schott, Friedrich A||Stramma, Lothar||Wang, Weiqiang||Giese, Benjamin S||Zantopp, Rainer

publication date

  • May 2008