NCEI publishes updated Northeast Pacific Regional Ocean Climatology
NCEI has published an updated version of the Northeast Pacific (NEP) Regional Ocean Climatology. This product describes the long-term state of essential environmental ocean variables. The updated NEP climatology is a subset of the World Ocean Atlas based on the World Ocean Database archive of temperature and salinity observations, which span more than a hundred years. The new climatology incorporates a significant amount of new, previously unavailable data.
What is a Climatology?
A climatology, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization, refers to the long-term average of a given variable—typically temperature—over various time periods. In oceanography, "ocean climate" specifically describes ocean parameters averaged over a decade or longer.
For instance, a monthly decadal ocean climatology provides a value for each month, averaged over a selected decade. Ocean climatologies focus on long-term averaged oceanic parameters such as temperature, salinity, and oxygen. There are global climatologies that cover the entire World Ocean, as well as regional ones for specific ocean regions.
NCEI develops ocean climatologies for annual, seasonal, and monthly periods. This supports scientific analyses and investigations into interannual-to-decadal ocean climate variability using historical oceanographic data.
The NEP climatology's initial version utilized data from the World Ocean Database 2018 (WOD18). Significant advancements in technology, particularly with unmanned systems and autonomous floats, have since provided a wealth of in situ observations, effectively filling previous spatial gaps. The updated climatology incorporates additional data from the World Ocean Database 2023 (WOD23) and is prepared on grids of 1, 0.25, and 0.10 degrees of resolution, spanning the ocean surface to a depth of 4000 m. These refined spatial and vertical resolution analyses are highly beneficial for model input and serve as a foundation for fisheries’ research. Furthermore, the creation of this climatology served as a test analysis for cloud-based product computing. Users can now access figures and data through the product page and within the NCEI archives.
Regional Significance
The NEP region holds significant importance due to several factors. It is home to 5 of the 10 busiest ports in the United States, making the data from ocean climatologies immensely valuable. The commercial and recreational fishing industries are major economic contributors to hundreds of coastal communities and cities within the NEP. Additionally, tourism and recreation are significant economic drivers, as the region boasts some of North America's most popular vacation destinations.
This ocean region is recognized as one of the world's most productive ecosystems and broadly influences global weather patterns. Specifically, the NEP is home to the California Current System, a highly productive coastal ecosystem fueled by seasonal upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water.
The Northeast Pacific Regional Climatology is one of a suite of Regional Ocean Climatologies. These offer in-depth understanding of the condition and long-term variability of significant regions that play a vital role in the overall Earth and ocean variability, considering their economic and ecological importance.
