Publication Date:
1998-08-28
Description:
Comparisons of gyre-scale acoustic and direct thermal measurements of heat content in the Pacific Ocean, satellite altimeter measurements of sea surface height, and results from a general circulation model show that only about half of the seasonal and year-to-year changes in sea level are attributable to thermal expansion. Interpreting climate change signals from fluctuations in sea level is therefore complicated. The annual cycle of heat flux is 150 +/- 25 watts per square meter (peak-to-peak, corresponding to a 0.2 degreesC vertically averaged temperature cycle); an interannual change of similar magnitude is also detected. Meteorological estimates of surface heat flux, if accurate, require a large seasonal cycle in the advective heat flux.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉TAC -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1998 Aug 28;281(5381):1327-32.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉The ATOC Consortium: A. B. Baggeroer, T. G. Birdsall, C. Clark, J. A. Colosi, B. D. Cornuelle, D. Costa, B. D. Dushaw, M. Dzieciuch, A. M. G. Forbes, C. Hill, B. M. Howe, J. Marshall, D. Menemenlis, J. A. Mercer, K. Metzger, W. Munk, R. C. Spindel, D.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9721093" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
