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Regional Climatology: East Asian Seas

Note: This is a preliminary version of the regional climatology for the East Asian Seas. In this initial release, a set of mean fields for temperature and salinity are available for the period of 1804 to 2011. As more data becomes available the climatology will be recalculated based on the new data.

Study area: 115.0o E to 143.0oE longitude and 24.0oN to 52.0o N latitude.

Time resolution: The climatologies for temperature and salinity use all available data regardless of year of measurement. Climatologies were calculated for the annual (all-data), seasonal, and monthly time periods. Seasons are defined as: Winter (Jan.-Mar.), Spring (Apr.-Jun.), Summer (Jul.-Aug.), Fall (Sep.-Dec.).

Horizontal resolution: Temperature and salinity are available on a 1x1, 1/4, and 1/10th latitude/longitude degree grid.

Vertical resolution: Temperature and salinity are available on 102 standard levels (Table 1) with higher vertical resolution than World Ocean Atlas 2009. Annual and seasonal climatologies are available from the surface to 5500 meter depths. Monthly climatologies are available from the surface to 1500 meter depths.

Table 1

LevelDepth (m) LevelDepth (m) LevelDepth (m) LevelDepth (m) LevelDepth (m) LevelDepth (m)
10 24175 471000 702300 934600 1166900
25 25200 481050 712400 944700 1177000
310 26225 491100 722500 954800 1187100
415 27250 501150 732600 964900 1197200
520 28275 511200 742700 975000 1207300
625 29300 521250 752800 985100 1217400
730 30325 531300 762900 995200 1227500
835 31350 541350 773000 1005300 1237600
940 32375 551400 783100 1015400 1247700
1045 33400 561450 793200 1025500 1257800
1150 34425 571500 803300 1035600 1267900
1255 35450 581550 813400 1045700 1278000
1360 36475 591600 823500 1055800 1288100
1465 37500 601650 833600 1065900 1298200
1570 38550 611700 843700 1076000 1308300
1675 39600 621750 853800 1086100 1318400
1780 40650 631800 863900 1096200 1328500
1885 41700 641850 874000 1106300 1338600
1990 42750 651900 884100 1116400 1348700
2095 43800 661950 894200 1126500 1358800
21100 44850 672000 904300 1136600 1368900
22125 45900 682100 914400 1146700 1379000
23150 46950 692200 924500 1156800   

Additional fields: In addition to climatological mean fields, fields of statistical means (before objective analysis), standard deviation, standard error, data distribution, observed minus analyzed, and difference of time period from annual climatological mean, are also available.

Data used: All data on which this atlas is based are in the World Ocean Database (WOD) as of December 2011. For a description of this dataset, please see World Ocean Database 2009 Introduction (pdf, 3.40 MB).

Data formats: Data are presented in a comma separated value (csv) format which gives the latitude/longitude of the center of a grid box and the value at each depth in that grid box. Data are also presented in an ArcGIS compatible format and in netCDF.

Units: Temperature units are oC. Salinity is unitless on the Practical Salinity Scale-1978 [PSS]. Data distribution units are in number of observations in each grid box.

Bathymetry used: For the one degree and quarter degree climatologies, the mean value within a grid square from the ETOPO2 was used. For the one-tenth degree climatologies, the mean value within a grid square from the ETOPO1 was used.

Method: The method followed for calculation of the mean climatological fields is as detailed in the following publications: Temperature: Locarnini et al., 2010, Salinity: Antonov et al., 2010

Additional details on the quarter degree climatological calculation are found in Boyer et al., 2005. Table 2 gives radii of influence for all three passes through the objective analysis procedure for each horizontal resolution.

Pass1-deg radius of influence1/4-deg radius of influence1/10th deg radius of influence
1892 km321 km211 km
2669 km267 km155 km
3446 km214 km111 km

References:

Antonov, J. I., D. Seidov, T. P. Boyer, R. A. Locarnini, A. V. Mishonov, H. E. Garcia, O. K. Baranova, M. M. Zweng, and D. R. Johnson, 2010: World Ocean Atlas 2009, Volume 2: Salinity. S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 69, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 184 pp.

Boyer, T., S. Levitus, H. Garcia, R. A. Locarnini, C. Stephens, J. Antonov, 2005: Objective analyses of annual, seasonal, and monthly temperature and salinity for the world ocean on a 0.25 degree grid. Int. J. Clim., 25, 931-945.

Boyer, T. P., J. I. Antonov, O. K. Baranova, H. E. Garcia, D. R. Johnson, R. A. Locarnini, A. V. Mishonov, T. D. OBrien, D. Seidov, I. V. Smolyar, M. M. Zweng, 2009: World Ocean Database 2009. S. Levitus, Ed., NOAA Atlas NESDIS 66, U.S. Gov. Printing Office, Wash., D.C., 216 pp.

Locarnini, R. A., A. V. Mishonov, J. I. Antonov, T. P. Boyer, H. E. Garcia, O. K. Baranova, M. M. Zweng, and D. R. Johnson, 2010: World Ocean Atlas 2009, Volume 1: Temperature. S. Levitus, Ed. NOAA Atlas NESDIS 68, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 184 pp.


  Last modified:    Wed, 10-Oct-2012 20:17 UTC NODC.Webmaster@noaa.gov
 
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