Comparison of upwelling indices off Baja California derived from three different wind data sources

Abstract

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.