Sea surface temperature variability off southern Brazil and Uruguay as revealed from historical data since 1854

Abstract

About 300,000 quality‐controlled local reports from ships of opportunity were complemented with the data extracted from global data records to compile monthly series of sea surface temperature (SST) for the period 1854 to 1994 on a grid 1° × 1° in latitude and longitude. These historical data are used to investigate the variability off the coast of southern Brazil and Uruguay in a broad range of temporal scales from seasonal to secular. With respect to behavior at these scales, three distinct areas can be identified in the study region. The first one, located over the shelf and controlled by winter invasions of subantarctic water along with Rio de la Plata and Patos‐Mirim discharges, is characterized by large annual range of SST (7° to over 10°C), energetic mean square variability (from 1.4 to 2.2°C2, after removal of seasonal signal), and an extremely high secular trend toward warming (1.2 to 1.6°C per 100 years), especially in the proximity of the estuaries. The second one, an area of the Brazil Current influence, exhibits smaller annual range (5° to 7°C) and mean square variability (1 to 1.4°C2). The secular trend is from 1° to 1.2°C per 100 years, smaller than observed in the shelf, but still high compared to the global average. The third area, which encompasses the eastern deep ocean part of the region away from the influence of either major currents or coastal discharges, exhibits less energetic variability at all examined scales, as compared to the rest of the region. Everywhere in the region, 50 to 80% of interannual variability is associated with periods smaller than 10 years; however, compared to the rest of the region, the shelf zone is characterized by a relatively large contribution from decadal and interdecadal scales. In austral winter a thermal front forms in the study region, separating warm tropical water associated with the Brazil Current and cold subantarctic water flowing northward on the shelf with an admixture of coastal freshwater discharges. The position of this frontal zone is subject to strong year‐to‐year changes. More than a half of the energy of these migrations resides at periods smaller than 10 years where the spectrum is fairly white. In the interdecadal part of the spectrum, at least three significant individual peaks can be identified, corresponding to periods of 47±2, 27±1, and 18 years.