Reduced Space Optimal Interpolation of Historical Marine Sea Level Pressure: 1854–1992*

Abstract Near-global 4° × 4° gridded analysis of marine sea level pressure (SLP) from the Comprehensive Ocean–Atmosphere Data Set for monthly averages from 1854 to 1992 was produced along with its estimated error using a reduced space optimal interpolation method. A novel procedure of covariance adjustment brought the results of the analysis to the consistency with the a priori assumptions on the signal covariance structure. Comparisons with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research global atmosphere reanalysis, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research historical analysis of the Northern Hemisphere SLP, and with the global historical analysis of the U.K. Meteorological Office show encouraging skill of the present product and identifies noninclusion of the land data as its main limitation. Marine SLP pressure proxies are produced for the land stations used in the definitions of the Southern Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) indices. S...

[1]  T. V. Ommen,et al.  Observed climate variability and change , 2002 .

[2]  James W. Hurrell,et al.  Global Sea Surface Temperature Analyses: Multiple Problems and Their Implications for Climate Analysis, Modeling, and Reanalysis , 1999 .

[3]  P. Jones,et al.  Pre-1866 extensions of the Southern oscillation index using early Indonesian and Tahitian meteorological readings , 1998 .

[4]  Balaji Rajagopalan,et al.  Analyses of global sea surface temperature 1856–1991 , 1998 .

[5]  Andrew Sturman,et al.  El Niño Southern Oscillation and Climatic Variability , 1998 .

[6]  Steven J. Worley,et al.  COADS Release 2 data and metadata enhancements for improvements of marine surface flux fields , 1998 .

[7]  M. Benno Blumenthal,et al.  Reduced space optimal analysis for historical data sets: 136 years of Atlantic sea surface temperatures , 1997 .

[8]  P. Jones,et al.  Extension to the North Atlantic oscillation using early instrumental pressure observations from Gibraltar and south‐west Iceland , 1997 .

[9]  J. Wallace,et al.  A Pacific Interdecadal Climate Oscillation with Impacts on Salmon Production , 1997 .

[10]  T. Basnett,et al.  Development of the Global Mean Sea Level Pressure Data Set GMSLP2 , 1997 .

[11]  J. Wallace,et al.  ENSO-like Interdecadal Variability: 1900–93 , 1997 .

[12]  I. Held,et al.  Equilibrium Atmospheric Response to North Atlantic SST Anomalies , 1996 .

[13]  Timothy J. Hoar,et al.  The 1990–1995 El Niño‐Southern Oscillation Event: Longest on Record , 1996 .

[14]  J. Hurrell.  Decadal Trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation: Regional Temperatures and Precipitation , 1995, Science.

[15]  David Parker,et al.  Interdecadal changes of surface temperature since the late nineteenth century , 1994 .

[16]  James W. Hurrell,et al.  Decadal atmosphere-ocean variations in the Pacific , 1994 .

[17]  Y. Kushnir,et al.  Interdecadal Variations in North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature and Associated Atmospheric Conditions , 1994 .

[18]  John R. Christy,et al.  Monitoring global monthly mean surface temperatures , 1992 .

[19]  Catherine A. Smith,et al.  An Intercomparison of Methods for Finding Coupled Patterns in Climate Data , 1992 .

[20]  Kevin E. Trenberth,et al.  Climate Diagnostics from Global Analyses: Conservation of Mass in ECMWF Analyses , 1991 .

[21]  D. Parker,et al.  Worldwide surface temperature trends since the mid-19th century , 1991 .

[22]  Ralph J. Slutz,et al.  A Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set , 1987 .

[23]  P. Jones,et al.  An Extension of the TahitiDarwin Southern Oscillation Index , 1987 .

[24]  T. Palmer,et al.  Sahel rainfall and worldwide sea temperatures, 1901–85 , 1986, Nature.

[25]  Kevin E. Trenberth,et al.  Signal Versus Noise in the Southern Oscillation , 1984 .

[26]  T. Barnett.  Long-Term Trends in Surface Temperature over the Oceans , 1984 .

[27]  K. Trenberth,et al.  The Northern Hemisphere Sea-Level Pressure Data Set: Trends, Errors and Discontinuities , 1980 .

[28]  Russ E. Davis,et al.  Predictability of Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Level Pressure Anomalies over the North Pacific Ocean , 1976 .

[29]  C. E. Leith,et al.  The Standard Error of Time-Average Estimates of Climatic Means , 1973 .

[30]  R. Shapiro.  The Use of Linear Filtering as a Parameterization of Atmospheric Diffusion , 1971 .