How can we leverage the ECCO product & tools to identify key drivers of extreme warming events in the Coastal California Current System during 2014-16?

Approach

• Study anomalously high temperatures between 2014-2015 in the CalCOFI region using a combination of (i) adjoint studies, (i) attribution experiments and (i) volume/heat budgets!

Conclusions

• Subsurface (100 -210 meters depth) warm anomaly in the CalCOFI region can be attributed to both remote and local zonal wind stresses fluctuations.
• Wind stress fluctuations primarily drive changes in advection and transport that cause warming (likely via planetary waves).