Sub-seasonal variance of surface meteorological parameters in buoy observations and reanalyses

Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO)/Triangle Trans-Ocean Buoy Network (TRITON) and Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate (EPIC) moorings across the equatorial Pacific are used to evaluate the mean climate and sub-seasonal variance in surface meteorological variables in the NCEP/ NCAR, NCEP/DOE, and ERA40 reanalyses. This study focuses on the June-November time period when tropical storms are most frequent in the region. For the mean fields, the reanalysis surface products compare better with the moorings than the 1000 hPa products. In contrast, the variance in the 1000 hPa ERA40 state variables is in best agreement with the mooring variance. As long as these disparities exist, air-sea interaction studies and our ability to drive ocean models with observed fluxes will be limited.