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Article: What Drives the Seasonal Onset and Decay of the Western Hemisphere Warm Pool?
- Article from:
- Journal of Climate
- Article date:
- May 15, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright American Meteorological Society May 15, 2007. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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ABSTRACT
The annual heat budget of the Western Hemisphere warm pool (WHWP) is explored using the output of an ocean general circulation model (OGCM) simulation. According to the analysis, the WHWP cannot be considered as a monolithic whole with a single set of dominating processes that explain its behavior. The three regions considered, namely the eastern north Pacific (ENP), the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), and the Caribbean Sea (CBN), are each unique in terms of the atmospheric and oceanic processes that dominate the corresponding heat budgets. In the ENP region, clear-sky shortwave radiation flux is responsible for the growth of the warm pool in boreal spring, while increased cloud cover in ...