One dimensional model hindcasts of warm anomalies in the North Pacific Ocean.

Abstract

Hindcasts of the development, maintenance and decay of warm anomalies in the North Pacific Ocean are attempted with the Garwood one-dimensional ocean mixed layer model. Monthly temperature analyses from the North Pacific Ocean Experiment (NORPAX) provide the initial and verifying fields, and the atmospheric forcing is derived from FNOC archived analyses, large systematic errors in the anomaly hindcasts during the early summer are apparently due to erroneous surface heat flux specifications. Variations of the heat flux corrections proposed by Elsberry et al. (1982) are extensively tested for one warm anomaly development period. The climatology of Wyrtki (1967) is the heat flux specification most successful in simulating the observed anomaly patterns. The hindcasts demonstrate the importance of an accurate heat flux specification for correct prediction of warm anomalies.