1961). Hester (1961) 1 has found that 

 landings of bluefin (Thunnus saliens) and 

 albacore taken off southern and Baja 

 California are correlated to water 

 temperatures at two coastal stations in 

 southern California. According to 

 Alverson (1959), movements of the 

 tropical tunas, skipjack (Katsuuonus 

 pelamis) and yellowfin (Neothunnus macrop- 

 terus) into and out of regions off Baja 

 California appear to be related to sea 

 temperatures, and Blackburn (1960) 

 suggested that skipjack and yellowfin 

 ranged farther north than usual off the 

 west coast of North America in 1957 

 and 1958, years recorded by Stewart, 

 et al. (1958); Reid (I960); and others, 

 as "warm years" in the eastern Pacific 

 Ocean. 



MATERIALS AND METHODS 



The oceanic sea temperature data 

 presented in this study are injection 

 temperatures taken by merchant and 

 naval ships cooperating with the U.S. 

 Weather Bureau. These data were made 

 available to the author by the Labora- 

 tory Director, Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries Biological Laboratory, Stan- 

 ford, California. By investigating 

 broad- scale oceanographic changes in 

 the Pacific Ocean north of latitude 

 20° S., scientists at that laboratory 

 have obtained historical records of 

 injection temperatures as well as other 

 oceanographic and meteorological data 

 from the National Weather Records 

 Center, Asheville, North Carolina. 



Coastal temperatures at Cape St. 

 James and Kains Island, British Colum- 

 bia, were extracted from a report by 

 Hollister (I960). Temperatures at Hop- 

 kins Marine Station, Pacific Grove, 

 California, and Scripps Pier, La Jolla, 

 California, were obtained from a man- 

 uscript prepared under the direction of 

 Margaret K. Robinson of Scripps Insti- 

 tution of Oceanography.' The locations 

 of these stations are as follows: 



Location 



Station Latitude Longitude 



Cape St. James, B.C. 51° 53* N. 131° 01" W. 



Kains Island, B.C. 50O 26' N. 128° 02' W. 



Pacific Grove. Calif. 36°38'N. 121° 55* W. 



Scripps Pier, La Jolla, 32°52'N. 117°15*W. 

 Calif. 



Injection temperatures are subject to 

 a wide range of error depending upon 

 type, placement, and operation of injec- 

 tion systems and placement of recording 

 thermometers in the systems. Intakes 

 for these systems range approximately 

 10-30 feet below the surface of the 

 water. Franceschini ( 1955) concluded, 

 however, that the surface temperature 

 distribution derived from injection 

 temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico in 

 1951 and 1952 was not significantly 

 different from that obtained from scien- 

 tific oceanographic surveys. 



An analysis of observations taken 

 aboard five Military Sea Transport 

 Service ships to obtain data on the 

 difference between injection tempera- 

 tures and surface temperatures (ob- 

 tained through use of accurately cali- 

 brated thermometers contained in 

 standard Scripps Institution of Oceanog- 

 raphy holders or "buckets") has been 

 made by Saur' of the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries Biological Labora- 

 tory, Stanford, in cooperation with the 

 U.S. Weather Bureau. The bias was not 

 consistent among ships but ranged from 

 -0.5° to 2.2° F. Further observations 

 from many ships are required before 

 it will be possible to estimate a possible 

 bias of reporting ships as a whole in 

 relation to surface temperature. 



Another study, still in progress at 

 the Bureau's Biological Laboratory at 

 Stanford, wherein a given ship's re- 

 ported temperatures are compared with 

 the temperatures reported by other 

 ships at the same time and place 

 (10-day period, 2° lat. by 2° long.) 

 promises to give an estimate of bias 

 based on data from a large number of 



1 Hester, Frank J. A method of predicting tuna catch 

 by using coastal sea-surface temperatures. California 

 Fish and Game (in press). 



* Daily surface water temperatures and salinities at 

 shore stations, California and Washington coasts, 1945- 

 1959. University of California, Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography. 



'Saur, J. F. T. On the difference between sea water 

 temperatures from ship's weather observations and sea 

 surface temperatures. Paper presented at American 

 Geophysical Union, Southwest Regional meetings, 

 January 26, 1961, Berkeley, California. 



