North Pacific Experiment (NORPAX) 



NORPAX is concerned with long-period, large-scale, 

 ocean-atmosphere interactions, and is jointly sponsored by 

 IDOE and the Office of Naval Research. The goal of NOR- 

 PAX is to develop a basis for understanding the physical 

 processes responsible for large-scale thermal anomalies that 

 occur at midlatitudes in the upper layer of the North Pacific 

 Ocean, and to determine the influence of these ocean anom- 

 alies on weather patterns over North America. Plans are to 

 continue NORPAX for 5 years. Space scales exceed 1,000 km. 

 The scientific management of NORPAX is vested in a steering 

 committee and the scientific activity is as follows: 



1 ) Statistical analyses of historical data — to discover 

 statistic correlations between the ocean-atmosphere systems 

 that can enhance forecasting and prediction capabilities. NOAA 



Environmental Data Service's National Oceanographic Data 

 Center and National Climatic Center are providing data for 

 this purpose. 



2) Process-oriented field studies involve three sequential 

 generations of experiments, the first being to discover the 

 magnitude and scales of processes causing oceanic anomalies. 

 Objectives are: to determine scales of mixed layer variability 

 and oceanic thermal structure processes, to test remote sensing 

 techniques, and to intensively sample responses of the mixed 

 layer to surface fluxes to test theories about the mixed layer. 



3) Theoretical and numerical objectives are to develop 

 numerical models of the ocean-atmosphere system for use in 

 hindcasts of climatic change. 



4) Monitoring of key areas includes implementation of 

 sea-level observational networks in selected regions and ex- 

 pansion of the Ships of Opportunity Program. The NOAA 

 National Marine Fisheries Service Ship of Opportunity Project, 

 which was supported by IDOE for 3 years as a NOAA project, 

 is a program to obtain ocean salinity, surface temperature, 

 temperature versus depth (XBT), and weather observations 

 aboard merchant vessels. This project has been extended by 

 ONR and IDOE in support of NORPAX (fig. 13). 



The first process-oriented field study project was con- 

 ducted north of Hawaii (35°N, 155°W) during January and 

 February 1974 (fig. 14). This project was called POLE 



Figure 13. — NORPAX monitoring, island stations, and sliips of opportunity routes. 



14 



