SGER: Analysis & Modelling of Opportunistic Equatorial Transect Data Preceeding the Onset of Tropical Instability

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Proehl9900848Funding is provided to try to validate recent theories on instability dynamics in the tropical oceans. The motivation for this undertaking is the existence of a perfectly matched set of data obtained during a cruise of opportunity in the instability wave region of the eastern tropical Pacific in late august 1994. The importance of this data set arises from the very fortuitous timing of the cruise, one week prior to the onset of tropical instability waves as viewed fromsatellite observations. Given the rapid e-folding time of these waves (2-3 weeks), this equatorial snapshot is our best view to date of a mature, unstable background state just before the presence of the waves has significantly modified its characteristics. This unique data set will be analyzed an utilized along with appropriate satellite imagery to realistically configure and run stability models of the equatorial region.