HR: 17:00h
AN: PP34B-05 INVITED    [Abstracts]
TI: The North Pacific Gyre Mode
AU: * Schneider, N
EM: nschneid@hawaii.edu
AF: International Pacific Research Center and Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1680 East West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822, United States
AU: Di Lorenzo, E
EM: edl@eas.gatech.edu
AF: School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, 311 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States
AB: Discussion of North Pacific Decadal decadal variability has focused primarily on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the leading mode of sea surface temperature anomalies north of the tropics. The PDO appears to result from a superposition of SST pattern forced by the North Pacific atmosphere due to its intrinsic dynamics and teleconnected from the tropics, with a regional impact of the ocean circulation in the frontal regions associated with the Kuroshio/Oyashio and their extensions into the interior. Recent modeling, however, suggest that previously unexplained decadal changes of salinity, nutrient upwelling and chlorophyl in the California Current are not dominated by the PDO. Rather, these are associated with a mode of variability associated with wind driven changes of the North Pacific Gyre. Consideration of this mode variability may thus be important to understand present and future variations of the North Pacific ecosystem, and in the interpretation of climate proxies.
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (1616, 1635, 3305, 3309, 4513)
DE: 4513 Decadal ocean variability (1616, 1635, 3305, 4215)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting