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SST AND RADIATION CLIMATOLOGY FOR THE CEPEX DOMAIN

The design of the CEPEX domain and the observing system is based upon the regional SST data from Reynolds's blended analyses (1988) and the ERBE data analyses of W. Collins, J. del Corral, and W. Conant. The following figures show selected regional maps and plots of these data (Figures A.1 through A.7), with particular focus on March 1985 and March 1989. It is for this period that we have calibrated radiation budget data sets from ERBE.

The flight paths for the ER-2 and the Learjet overlay the regional maps. The flight paths traverse the maximum SST gradients in the equatorial Pacific (Figure A.1 for March 1989 and Figure 5.1 for March 1985); they also traverse the maximum west to east gradients in the atmospheric greenhouse effect (Figure A.1, bottom panel) and cloud radiative forcing (Figures A.2 and A.3). It should be noted, however, that maximum gradients in all of these quantities are in the traverse from Fiji to the equatorial Pacific across the south Pacific convergence zone. The observed variations along the flight path are shown in Figure A.4 for the western traverse and in Figure A.5 for the eastern traverse of the ER-2 and the Learjet. All of these results are for monthly mean conditions. The daily values along the flight traverse are shown in Figures A.6 and A.7, respectively, for long-wave and short-wave cloud forcing. Each of these figures show the following:

• Six different daily values, separated by four days. These samples simulate the proposed flight plan for the ER-2 and the Learjet.
• The mean of the six sampled days, denoted by “sample mean.”.
• The actual monthly mean values. The comparison of sample mean with monthly mean indicates that in spite of the large daily variations, the six-day sample mean gives an adequate representation of the monthly mean values.

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