USE OF MONTHLY MEAN DATA TO COMPUTE SURFACE TURBULENT FLUXES IN THE TROPICAL PACIFIC

This study investigates to what extent monthly mean surface meteorolog ical variables can be used to estimate surface turbulent fluxes in the equatorial Pacific. The two-year data from the TOGA TAO moored buoy a rray are used to compute the monthly mean surface fluxes using both da ily mean and monthly mean data as input to the bulk aerodynamic formul as. A unique feature of the dataset is that it covers the western Paci fic warm pool, a region of climatologically low surface winds and acti ve convection. The results show that the ocean surface sensible and la tent heat fluxes can be estimated using the monthly mean data to a ver y high accuracy and that the momentum flux is generally underestimated by about 10% when the monthly mean data instead of daily data is used . This study, together with previous studies by other researchers, sug gests that the monthly mean data such as those derived from satellite measurements can be used to estimate the surface heat, moisture, and m omentum fluxes over the global oceans.