Changes in the Climate Record Due to Changes in the Ocean Observing System

Prior studies have shown that long-term changes in latent heat fluxes in the tropical Pacific Ocean are associated with changes in wind speed. The data used in these studies spans over five decades. The early period is solely in situ observations, and the later decades are dominated by satellite observations. This study finds that the differences in physics of surface observations and satellite observations accounts for the magnitude and pattern of the largest changes in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The key physics (Bourassa 2006) will be explained and the calculated differences will be shown.