187 



Evidence of marked cooling in the surface layers of the ocean, as 

 shown by the preceding paper by Leipper, has been noted in association with 

 some intense typhoons in the western Pacific. As discussed in a recent 

 report /T/. cooling of this type is often clearly indicated by 15-day mean 

 charts but the cooling shown between successive 15-day periods seldom exceeds 

 5 F. Individual ship traverses through areas over which intense typhoons 

 have passed have indicated cooling of the same magnitude shown by Leipper. 



The sea surface temperat ure given in routine synoptic reports are 

 subject to quite large errors /2 / but the errors tend to be systematic for 

 an individual ship. Consequently, the temperature changes indicated along 

 a ship track are usually much more reliable than those deduced by combining 

 observations from several ships. Observations of this type have been used 

 to present two cases of unusually low sea surface temperature in the western 

 Pacific (Figures 1 and 2) . The data for the ship which passed through the 

 area traversed by typhoon Wanda of 1956 ( Figure l) were taken less than 



38°E 



Figure 1. Ship traverses prior to and following typhoon Wanda of 1956. 

 The positions of the storm center and its central pressure at 0000 GMT 

 are shown along the storm track. Temperature values (in F) are given 

 along the two ship traverses with dates and times shown below the individual 

 reports. The additional reports of sea surface temperature were made on 

 July 30 and 31. 



