Paper 1 



FLUCTUATIONS OF SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND 

 D.ENSITY AT COASTAL STATIONS DURING 1976 



Doug Las R. McLain 



Sea surface temperature (SST) and density measur 

 made routinely at many U.S. National Ocean 

 gages and other coastal stations for many years 

 data suffer from various problems such as ga 

 inadequate exposure to open ocean conditions/^ c 

 of stations allows the data to be used as an in 

 of climatic fluctuations in nearshore water 

 summarizes moathly mean SST and density fluctuat 

 long-term means for three coasts of North Americ 

 contoured in a common manner for each coas 

 climatic events and to allow comparison of flue 

 coasts . 



ements have been 

 Survey (NOS) tide 

 Alt hough t he 

 ps in coverage or 

 areful selection 

 expensive monitor 

 s . This report 

 ions for 1970 and 

 a. The data are 

 t to flag unusue I 

 tuations between 



This report is a refinement for 1976 of a similar report by 

 Goulet (1978). His plots were for 1974 and 1975 only/ as earlier 

 data were not available in a computer compatible format. 

 Subsequently/ a computer tape of all available historical monthly 

 mean temperature/ density/ and sea level data taken at NOS tide 

 gage control stations was developed.^ The Tides Branch of NOS 

 provided update punch cards of monthly mean data. These data and 

 certain Canadian data' were merged with the historical tape for 

 preparation of this report. The data are now archived by the 

 National Oc eanog raphi c Data Center and are available through 

 their Data Services Division. 



McLain (1978) presented time series of monthly mean anomalies of 

 SST's at coastal stations along the west coast of North America. 

 Presented here are distance vs. time contours of long-term means 

 and anomalies from the means for 1976 SST and density at selected 



Pacific Environmental Group/ National Marine Fisheries Service/ 

 c/o Fleet Numerical Weather Central/ Monterey/ CA 93940. 



'J. R. Goulet/ Jr. end E. D. Haynes Df the Resource Assessment 

 Division/ NMFS/ NOAA/ provided for the editing/ keypunching/ and 

 quality control of these data. 



'L. F. Giovando/ Environment Canada/ Vancouver/ B.C. V7V 1N6. 

 P e r s . commun . 



151 



