Polar Oceans from Space by Josefino Comiso

Author:Josefino Comiso
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer New York, New York, NY

The year-to-year changes in the February temperature distribution are better quantified by the anomaly maps presented in Fig. 6.3. The anomaluy map for a certain month is the difference of the average temperature for this month and that of climatology (i.e., Fig. 6.1) for the same month. The color coding for the maps is such that anomalously warm regions are represented by shades of orange, red and purple, while relatively cold regions are represented by shades of gray, green, blue and violet. The locations and extents of relatively warm (or cold) regions in winter for each year show up much better in the anomaly map than in the monthly maps. While some of the patterns look generally similar, none is close to being identical. Relatively warm Februaries in the Arctic basin occured in 1984, 1989, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2007 with the last 3 years being unusually warm. On the other hand, cold Februaries in the same region occurred in 1983, 1987, 1991, 1992, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004. During other years, mixtures of positive and negative anomalies in the Arctic basin are observed. Positive anomalies are also shown to be persistent in the Greenland ice sheets in the last few years, especially from 2004 to 2007. During this time period (i.e., 2004-2007), the average temperatures in some areas in Siberia was colder than those in Greenland. Overall, the February anomaly maps provide a unique overview of the spatial and interannual variability of surface temperature during winter conditions.

Fig. 6.3Monthly averages of surface temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere in winter (February) as derived from AVHRR data for the period1982 to 2008

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