Schmatic of Meridional Over turning circulation in the Pacific (from England et al., 2014)
Schmatic of Meridional Over turning circulation in the Pacific (from England et al., 2014)
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Schematic of the trends in temperature and ocean–atmosphere circulation in the Pacific over the past two decades (from England et al., 2014). Color shading shows observed temperature trends (◦C per decade) during 1992–2011 at the sea surface (Northern Hemisphere only), zonally averaged in the latitude-depth sense and along the equatorial Pacific in the longitude-depth plane (averaged between 5°N–5°S). Peak warming in the western Pacific thermocline is 2.0°C per decade in the reanalysis data and 2.2°C per decade in the model. The mean and anomalous circulation in the Pacific Ocean is shown by bold and thin arrows, respectively, indicating an overall acceleration of the Pacific Ocean shallow overturning cells, the equatorial surface currents and the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC).