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The presented climate atlas follows with regard to structure and vol ume the Bunker Climate Atlas of the North Atlantic Ocean published 1985 by H.-J. Isemer and L. Hasse, which has become a standard work for the climate study community. A new edition was appropriate, since during the last decade much progress was achieved in the correct interpretation of the wind speed reported by merchant ships. As the wind speed is an essential parameter for the fundamental air-sea interactions, namely the exchange of momentum and energy between ocean and atmosphere, considerable impact on resulting climate key parameters as Sverdrup transport or meridional heat transport could be expected. Furthermore, individual ship observations are nowadays available from COADS, the Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set, and, due to the grown computer power, these data are processable in reasonable time. Thus, improving the calculations of air-sea fluxes, as performed by Isemer and Hasse, is no longer a complex and tricky venture, since flux parameterizations can be applied directly to the ship observations. Compared to the Bunker Altas we expanded the considered sea area and included also the South Atlantic. Considering the entire Atlantic Ocean reveals not only interesting features of the southern hemisphere but allows also a finer assessment of the resulting energy fluxes.
List of contents
1 Introduction.- 2 Data and Data Treatment.- 3 Derivation of Air-Sea Fluxes by Parameterisations.- 3.1 Net Shortwave Radiation.- 3.2 Net Longwave Radiation.- 3.3 Latent and Sensible Heat Fluxes.- 3.4 Wind Stress.- 4 Net Air-Sea Heat Flux and Meridional Heat Transport.- 5 Concluding Remarks.- 6 References.- I Observations.- Time-Latitude Diagrams.- Annual Cycles at Selected Locations.- Observation Density.- Sea Surface Temperature.- Air Temperature.- Air minus Sea Surface Temperature.- Mixing Ratio.- Relative Humidity.- Air minus Sea Surface Mixing Ratio.- Total Cloud Cover.- Low Cloud Cover.- Precipitation Frequency.- Sea Level Air Pressure.- Scalar Wind Speed plus Resultant Wind Vector.- East Component of the Wind.- North Component of the Wind.- Magnitude of Resultant Wind plus Resultant Wind Vector.- Direction of the Mean Wind Vector.- Directional Steadiness of the Wind.- Divergence of the Wind.- II Air-Sea Interactions.- Time-Latitude Diagrams.- Annual Cycles at Selected Locations.- Net Shortwave Radiation.- Net Longwave Radiation.- Net Radiation.- Latent Heat Flux.- Evaporation.- Sensible Heat Flux.- Total Net Air-Sea Heat Flux.- Wind Stress.- East Component ot the Wind Stress.- North Component of the Wind Stress.- Curl of Wind Stress.- Ekman Volume Transport.- Vertical Ekman Velocity.- Sverdrup Transport.- Streamfunction of Sverdrup Transport.
Summary
The presented climate atlas follows with regard to structure and vol ume the Bunker Climate Atlas of the North Atlantic Ocean published 1985 by H.-J. Isemer and L. Hasse, which has become a standard work for the climate study community. A new edition was appropriate, since during the last decade much progress was achieved in the correct interpretation of the wind speed reported by merchant ships. As the wind speed is an essential parameter for the fundamental air-sea interactions, namely the exchange of momentum and energy between ocean and atmosphere, considerable impact on resulting climate key parameters as Sverdrup transport or meridional heat transport could be expected. Furthermore, individual ship observations are nowadays available from COADS, the Comprehensive Ocean Atmosphere Data Set, and, due to the grown computer power, these data are processable in reasonable time. Thus, improving the calculations of air-sea fluxes, as performed by Isemer and Hasse, is no longer a complex and tricky venture, since flux parameterizations can be applied directly to the ship observations. Compared to the Bunker Altas we expanded the considered sea area and included also the South Atlantic. Considering the entire Atlantic Ocean reveals not only interesting features of the southern hemisphere but allows also a finer assessment of the resulting energy fluxes.
