We compared the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science
Center’s Environmental Research Division (formerly
Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory: PFEL) coastal
upwelling indices along the northern Baja California
coast with those derived from winds measured by coastal
meteorological stations and estimated by the QuikSCAT
satellite. With the exception of the PFEL series at 33°N,
the three data sets compare reasonably well, having similar
typical year patterns, correlations >0.6, and significant
coherences for periods three to five days or longer.
By contrast, the seasonal variations, the timing and magnitude
of maximum upwelling, and the variability of the
PFEL indices at 33°N are significantly different compared
to all the other time series, including QuikSCAT
at that location. The performance of the QuikSCAT
winds close to shore was evaluated using the coastal
meteorological station data. Although large root-meansquare
(RMS) errors in direction were found for the
QuikSCAT winds, both datasets have properties similar
to the variance ellipses, and show reasonable coherences
for frequencies in the weather band and lower, particularly
south of 33°N.
