Paper 10 



et aL. (1974) are similar to those at the coastal stations but 

 winter minimum temperatures are about 1C lower at the coastal 

 stations. This depression of coastal coastal temperatures may 

 result from the lower heat capacity of the shallower water column 

 at the coastal stations as compared to the offshore areas. 



Both Figure 1u.2 and the figure of Bakun et al. (1974) show a 

 horizontal trend to the isotherms near Point Conception/ CA/ 

 oetween Port San Luis and Los Anqeles. This "flattening" of the 

 isotherms is an indication of change of ocean water masses at 

 Point Conception between the cold California Current water to the 

 north and the warmer water of the Los Angeles Bight to the south. 



During 1976 the anomalies of SST's at coastal stations were 

 rather noisy and the only major trend was the presence of cooler 

 than normal water along the co^st during spring and summer from 

 Sitkar AKr south to California. During summer^ first in 

 southeastern Alaska and later farther souths the anomalously cool 

 water was replaced by warmer than normal water which reached 

 maximum anomalies of +2.5C at Yakutat/^ AKr and off southern 

 California in November and December. 



WEST COAST DENSITIES 



The long-term mean distribution of density along the west coast 

 of North America (Fig. 10.3) showed that minimum densities 

 occurred off California in February/^ probably in response to 

 winter rains. In Alaska/^ however/^ minimum densities occurred in 

 June or July due to snow and glacial nelt. 



During 1976/' observations of density were spotty but showed 

 positive anomalies off most of the coast most of the year. Large 

 positive anomalies of density off San Francisco and Crescent City 

 were associated with drought conaitions existing over California 

 most of the year. The low densities at Kodiak/ AK/' in August and 

 September were apparently in response to local precipitation. 



153 



