Surface Cyclolysis in the North Pacific Ocean. Part I: A Synoptic Climatology

Ocean acidification of the North Pacific Ocean

The addition of fossil fuel carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is rapidly changing seawater chemistry and the calcium carbonate saturation state of the world’s oceans as a result of the acidifying effects of CO2 on seawater. This acidification makes it more difficult for many marine organisms (e.g., corals, plankton, calcareous algae, and mollusks) to build skeletons, tests, and shells of calcium...

Surface Heat Balance in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean: Climatology and the Warming Event of 1994–95

The surface heat budget in the equatorial Pacific Ocean was investigated through ocean model simulations, both the climatological cycle and the case of the 1994–95 warm event. The dominant processes governing the seasonal cycle of sea surface temperature (SST) vary significantly across the basin. In the western Pacific the annual cycle of SST is primarily in response to net surface heat flux. I...

Synoptic Climatology: An Overview

Interactions between Boreal Summer Intraseasonal Oscillations and Synoptic-Scale Disturbances over the Western North Pacific. Part I: Energetics Diagnosis*

The role of scale interactions in the maintenance of eddy kinetic energy (EKE) during the extreme phases of the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) is examined through the construction of a new eddy energetics diagnostic tool that separates the effects of ISO and a low-frequency background state (LFBS; with periods longer than 90 days). The LFBS always contributes positively toward the EKE in the b...

Abrupt surface drying and fire weather Part 2: a preliminary synoptic climatology in the forested areas of southern Australia

Dramatic lowering of the humidity at the surface was observed at Canberra Airport and at Port Lincoln Airport AWS respectively during two recent Australian extreme fire weather events, that of the Canberra fires of 18 January 2003, and that of the lower Eyre Peninsula fires of 11 January 2005. These events have been described in more detail in Mills (2005a) and in a companion paper (Mills 2008)...