Open AccessAtmospheric Radiation Measurement Program facilities newsletter, May 2000.
Author(s) -
Douglas L Sisterson
Publication year - 2000
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/757503
Subject(s) - equator , latitude , climatology , new guinea , la niña , environmental science , geography , sea surface temperature , oceanography , meteorology , geology , precipitation , history , ethnology , geodesy
This month the authors will visit an ARM CART site with a pleasant climate: the Tropical Western Pacific (TWP) CART site, along the equator in the western Pacific Ocean. The TWP locale lies between 10 degrees North latitude and 10 degrees South latitude and extends from Indonesia east-ward beyond the international date line. This area was selected because it is in and around the Pacific warm pool, the area of warm sea-surface temperatures that determine El Nino/La Nina episodes. The warm pool also adds heat and moisture to the atmosphere and thus fuels cloud formation. Understanding the way tropical clouds and water vapor affect the solar radiation budget is a focus of the ARM Program. The two current island-based CART sites in the TWP are in Manus Province in Papua New Guinea and on Nauru Island