Updated High-Resolution Northern North Pacific Regional Climatology Released

On November 7th, ESSIC/CISESS Scientist Alexey Mishonov and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) released the Northern North Pacific regional climatology, version 2.  This is a collection of high-resolution quality-controlled temperature and salinity fields retrieved from the latest World Ocean Database (WOD23) on standard depth levels from the sea surface to 5,200 m depth covering the period from 1955 to 2022. 

 

The Northern North Pacific is a resource-rich region which includes the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea, with abundant fisheries and other material assets that can be significantly impacted by ocean climate variability. Ocean processes in the region play an important role in long-term ocean climate change affecting all aspects of marine ecosystems. 

 

This climatology is instrumental for assessing ocean climate changes in this region of the North Pacific Ocean over the extended time period of seven decades and can be used in various climate studies, numerical ocean and climate modeling, environmental research projects, and other related applications. Updated high-resolution Northern North Pacific regional climatology, version 2 is an enhanced tool to study the long-term oceanic trends in this dynamic area.

Figure: NNP regional climatology: Winter (left) and Summer (right) Temperature for 2004-2014 decade on 1/10-degree grid at 10m depth.

Figure: NNP regional climatology: Winter (left) and Summer (right) Temperature for 2004-2014 decade on 1/10-degree grid at 10m depth.

Mishonov is a researcher with extensive experience in various fields of oceanography, including ocean color, water transmissivity and particulate organic carbon study, oceanographic data management, analysis, and climate research.

 

The complete set of all climatological maps, as well as objectively analyzed fields and associated statistical fields at all standard depth levels, presented in ASCII comma separated value (CSV), ArcGIS compatible, and netCDF formats and documentation are available online at the Northern North Pacific regional climatology, version 2 web site: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/northern-north-pacific-regional-climatology