An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans

An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans

We have applied a number of objective statistical techniques to define homogeneous climatic regions for the Pacific Ocean, using COADS (Woodruff et al 1987) monthly sea surface temperature (SST) for 1950-1989 as the key variable. The basic data comprised all global 4°x4° latitude/longitude boxes with enough data available to yield reliable long-term means of monthly mean SST. An R-mode principal components analysis of these data, following a technique first used by Stidd (1967), yields information about harmonics of the annual cycles of SST. We used the spatial coefficients (one for each 4-degree box and eigenvector) as input to a K-means cluster analysis to classify the gridbox SST data into 34 global regions, in which 20 comprise the Pacific and Indian oceans. Seasonal time series were then produced for each of these regions. For comparison purposes, the variance spectrum of each regional anomaly time series was calculated. Most of the significant spectral peaks occur near the biennial (2.1-2.2 years) and ENSO (~3-6 years) time scales in the tropical regions. Decadal scale fluctuations are important in the mid-latitude ocean regions.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diaz, Henry F., Brown, Timothy J.
Format: conference_item biblioteca
Language:English
Published: 1993-03
Subjects:Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography, PACLIM,
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1834/30447
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spelling dig-aquadocs-1834-304472021-06-28T03:18:20Z An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans Diaz, Henry F. Brown, Timothy J. Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography PACLIM We have applied a number of objective statistical techniques to define homogeneous climatic regions for the Pacific Ocean, using COADS (Woodruff et al 1987) monthly sea surface temperature (SST) for 1950-1989 as the key variable. The basic data comprised all global 4°x4° latitude/longitude boxes with enough data available to yield reliable long-term means of monthly mean SST. An R-mode principal components analysis of these data, following a technique first used by Stidd (1967), yields information about harmonics of the annual cycles of SST. We used the spatial coefficients (one for each 4-degree box and eigenvector) as input to a K-means cluster analysis to classify the gridbox SST data into 34 global regions, in which 20 comprise the Pacific and Indian oceans. Seasonal time series were then produced for each of these regions. For comparison purposes, the variance spectrum of each regional anomaly time series was calculated. Most of the significant spectral peaks occur near the biennial (2.1-2.2 years) and ENSO (~3-6 years) time scales in the tropical regions. Decadal scale fluctuations are important in the mid-latitude ocean regions. 2021-06-24T16:51:38Z 2021-06-24T16:51:38Z 1993-03 conference_item http://hdl.handle.net/1834/30447 en application/pdf application/pdf 55-62 http://aquaticcommons.org/id/eprint/14577 8 2014-10-27 19:07:30 14577
institution UNESCO
collection DSpace
country Francia
countrycode FR
component Bibliográfico
access En linea
databasecode dig-aquadocs
tag biblioteca
region Europa del Oeste
libraryname Repositorio AQUADOCS
language English
topic Atmospheric Sciences
Oceanography
PACLIM
Atmospheric Sciences
Oceanography
PACLIM
spellingShingle Atmospheric Sciences
Oceanography
PACLIM
Atmospheric Sciences
Oceanography
PACLIM
Diaz, Henry F.
Brown, Timothy J.
An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
description We have applied a number of objective statistical techniques to define homogeneous climatic regions for the Pacific Ocean, using COADS (Woodruff et al 1987) monthly sea surface temperature (SST) for 1950-1989 as the key variable. The basic data comprised all global 4°x4° latitude/longitude boxes with enough data available to yield reliable long-term means of monthly mean SST. An R-mode principal components analysis of these data, following a technique first used by Stidd (1967), yields information about harmonics of the annual cycles of SST. We used the spatial coefficients (one for each 4-degree box and eigenvector) as input to a K-means cluster analysis to classify the gridbox SST data into 34 global regions, in which 20 comprise the Pacific and Indian oceans. Seasonal time series were then produced for each of these regions. For comparison purposes, the variance spectrum of each regional anomaly time series was calculated. Most of the significant spectral peaks occur near the biennial (2.1-2.2 years) and ENSO (~3-6 years) time scales in the tropical regions. Decadal scale fluctuations are important in the mid-latitude ocean regions.
format conference_item
topic_facet Atmospheric Sciences
Oceanography
PACLIM
author Diaz, Henry F.
Brown, Timothy J.
author_facet Diaz, Henry F.
Brown, Timothy J.
author_sort Diaz, Henry F.
title An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
title_short An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
title_full An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
title_fullStr An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
title_full_unstemmed An objective classification of climatic regions in the Pacific and Indian oceans
title_sort objective classification of climatic regions in the pacific and indian oceans
publishDate 1993-03
url http://hdl.handle.net/1834/30447
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AT browntimothyj objectiveclassificationofclimaticregionsinthepacificandindianoceans
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