Pacific sea surface temperature associations with southwestern United States summer rainfall and atmospheric circulation

Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are examined for their associations with (1) summer rainfall, and (2) the latitude location of the mid-tropospheric subtropical high pressure ridge (STR) in the southwestern United States during 1945 to 1986. Extreme northward (southward) displacements of STR are associated with wet (dry) summers over Arizona and an enhanced (weakened) gradient of SST off the California and Baja coasts. These tend to follow winters marked by positive (negative) phases of the PNA, Pacific/North America, teleconnection pattern. Recent decadal variations of Arizona summer rainfall (1950s wet; 1970s dry) appear similarly related to southwestern United States synoptic circulation and eastern Pacific SSTs.

Sea surface temperature and paleo-El Niño events in Santa Barbara Basin, AD 1841-1941

Like pages of a "natural coastal diary", successive layers of anoxic varved sediment in the central Santa Barbara Basin have been used by paleoceanographers to reconstruct aspects of past coastal climate. This report focuses on the end of the "Little Ice Age" (15th to 19th century) and on the beginning of this century, a period known to encompass extreme climate excursions and weather events in the Santa Barbara Basin and other parts of Southern California. El Niño events are known to disrupt Southern California's coastal ecosystems and to cause anomalous weather conditions, but El Niño events in Southern California before 1990 have been largely undocumented.

Sea surface temperature reconstruction for the middle Okinawa Trough during the last glacial-interglacial cycle using C-37 unsaturated alkenones

IEECAS SKLLQG

Sea surface temperature reconstruction for the middle Okinawa Trough during the last glacial-interglacial cycle using C-37 unsaturated alkenones

C-37 unsaturated alkenones were analyzed on a core retrieved from the middle Okinawa Trough. The calculated U-37(K') displays a trend generally parallel with those of the oxygen isotopic compositions of two planktonic foraminiferal species, Neogloboquadrina dutertrei and Globigerinoides sacculifer, suggesting that in this region, SST has varied in phase with global ice volume change since the last glacial -interglacial cycle. The U-37(K')-derived SST ranged from ca. 24.0 to 27.5 degrees C, with the highest value 27.5 degrees C occurring in marine isotope stage 5 and the lowest similar to 24.0 degrees C in marine isotope stage 2. This trend is consistent with the continental records from the East Asian monsoon domain and the marine records from the Equatorial Pacific. The deglacial increase of the U-37(K')-derived SST is similar to 2.4 degrees C from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intraseasonal variability of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature during boreal winter: Madden-Julian Oscillation versus submonthly forcing and processes

[ 1] Intraseasonal variability of Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) during boreal winter is investigated by analyzing available data and a suite of solutions to an ocean general circulation model for 1998 - 2004. This period covers the QuikSCAT and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) observations. Impacts of the 30 - 90 day and 10 - 30 day atmospheric intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) are examined separately, with the former dominated by the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) and the latter dominated by convectively coupled Rossby and Kelvin waves. The maximum variation of intraseasonal SST occurs at 10 degrees S - 2 degrees S in the wintertime Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), where the mixed layer is thin and intraseasonal wind speed reaches its maximum. The observed maximum warming ( cooling) averaged over ( 60 degrees E - 85 degrees E, 10 degrees S - 3 degrees S) is 1.13 degrees C ( - 0.97 degrees C) for the period of interest, with a standard deviation of 0.39 degrees C in winter. This SST change is forced predominantly by the MJO. While the MJO causes a basin-wide cooling ( warming) in the ITCZ region, submonthly ISOs cause a more complex SST structure that propagates southwestward in the western-central basin and southeastward in the eastern ocean. On both the MJO and submonthly timescales, winds are the deterministic factor for the SST variability. Short-wave radiation generally plays a secondary role, and effects of precipitation are negligible. The dominant role of winds results roughly equally from wind speed and stress forcing. Wind speed affects SST by altering turbulent heat fluxes and entrainment cooling. Wind stress affects SST via several local and remote oceanic processes.

Regional and annual variation in black-legged kittiwake breeding productivity is related to sea surface temperature

Spatiotemporal variation in seabird demographic parameters is often pronounced and may be an important source of information on the state of marine ecosystems. Black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla in Britain and Ireland show strong regional structure in breeding productivity, and both temporal and spatial variation are probably related to abundance of the principal prey of breeding kittiwakes, the lesser sandeel Ammodytes marinus. Annual regional estimates of sandeel abundance do not exist, prohibiting direct tests of this hypothesis. We examined relationships between kittiwake breeding productivity and 2 potential proxies of sandeel abundance, winter sea surface temperature (SST) and abundance of Calanus copepods, within and among 6 regions in Britain and Ireland from 1986 to 2004. Means and trends in winter SST differed among regions, with higher means and less pronounced increasing trends in western (Atlantic) regions than in eastern (North Sea) regions. A negative relationship between breeding productivity and winter SST in the previous year was found within 2 regions (East Scotland and Orkney), as well as in a cross-regional analysis. Results were inconclusive for Calanus abundance, with a positive relationship in East Scotland and negative in Orkney. These results demonstrate that although a single environmental driver (SST) is related to both within- and between-region variation in a key demographic parameter, regional heterogeneity in SST trends as well as the importance of other factors may lead to highly variable responses. Understanding this heterogeneity is critical for predicting long-term effects of climate change or other anthropogenic drivers on marine ecosystems.

Global synchrony of an accelerating risein sea surface temperature

The oceans have shown a recent rapid and accelerating rise in temperature with, given the close link between temperature and marine organisms, pronounced effects on ecosystems. Here we describe for the first time a globally synchronous pattern of pulsed short period (�1 year long) emanations of warm sea surface temperature anomalies from tropical seas towards the poles on the shelf/slope with an intensification of the warming after the 1976/1977, 1986/1987 and 1997/1998 El Nin˜os. On the eastern margins of continents the anomalies propagate towards the poles in part by largely baroclinic boundary currents, reinforced by regional atmospheric warming. The processes contributing to the less continuous warm anomalies on western margins are linked to the transfer of warmth from adjacent western boundary currents. These climate induced events show a close parallelism with the timing of ecosystem changes in shelf seas, important for fisheries and ecosystem services, and melting of sea-ice.

Dinoflagellate cyst-based reconstructions of mid to late Holocene winter sea-surface temperature and productivity from an anoxic fjord in the NE Pacific Ocean

Published contemporary dinoflagellate distributional data from the NE Pacific margin and estuarine environments (n = 136) were re-analyzed using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) and partial Canonical Correspondence Analysis (pCCA). These analyses illustrated the dominant controls of winter temperature and productivity on the distribution of dinoflagellate cysts in this region. Dinoflagellate cyst-based predictive models for winter temperature and productivity were developed from the contemporary distributional data using the modern analogue technique and applied to subfossil data from two mid to late Holocene (~5500 calendar years before present–present) cores; TUL99B03 and TUL99B11, collected from Effingham Inlet, a 15 km long anoxic fjord located on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island that directly opens to the Pacific Ocean through Barkley Sound. Sedimentation within these basins largely comprises annually deposited laminated couplets, each made up of a winter deposited terrigenous layer and spring to fall deposited diatomaceous layer. The Effingham Inlet dinoflagellate cyst record provides evidence of a mid-Holocene gradual decline in winter SST, ending with the initiation of neoglacial advances in the region by ~3500 cal BP. A reconstructed Late Holocene increase in winter SST was initiated by a weakening of the California Current, which would have resulted in a warmer central gyre and more El Niño-like conditions.