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eastern basin but not over the whole basin. Patterns of positive SSS anomalies in the
eastern equatorial Indian Ocean and negative anomalies in the eastern part of the region
south of *10S are quite consistent with SSS anomalies already reported during negative
IOD coupled with a strong La Ni ˜a event (see Fig.
8
of Grunseich et al.
2011
).
Although patterns of 2011-2010 SSS differences are similar on SMOS and ISAS
monthly maps, the differences are often more contrasted in the SMOS data (e.g., Fig.
20
,
left part and Fig.
22
).
This originates from fresher SSS seen in the SMOS SSS maps than in the ISAS SSS
maps (Fig.
22
). In addition, the spatial extent of the low SSS region appears wider in the
SMOS map, as illustrated in Fig.
22
left, around 8N. This is possibly due to the in situ
Fig. 21 Rain rate differences DRR = RR
2011
- RR
2010
derived from SSM/I F17 between 2011 and 2010
for months of June (top left); July (bottom left), October (top right), and November (bottom right)
Fig. 22 Left: July 2010 SSS maps in the northern tropical Pacific Ocean from ISAS (top) and SMOS
(bottom). Right: June 2010 SSS maps in south Pacific-Indian tropics from ISAS (top) and SMOS (bottom).
In both top panels, the small black dots represent the locations of the in situ data samples used in the
objective analysis. The purple square on the right figure indicates the region where the drifter discusses in
Fig.
23
evolved
