The Generation of Synthetic Sea Surface Temperature Data for the Equatorial Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Synthetic monthly SST anomaly data are constructed using frequency domain analyses of significant principle components derived from reconstructed SST data in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The model provides insight into the dominant physical processes contained in each component and retains the relevant statistical properties of the original data, such as the mean, variance, and autocorrelation. Thus, numerous sets of synthetic SST anomaly data can be produced for the equatorial Pacific that are statistically indistinguishable from the original SST anomaly data. The spatial and temporal SST signatures of the biennial, intradecadal, and decadal pseudoperiodicities are reproduced, including their frequency and duration of occurrence. Specifically, the ENSO warm and cold event signatures recur in the synthetic data at peak return periods of 2.4, 3.5, 5.0, and 6.4 yr. Moreover, the anticipated return period of an extreme ENSO event with a maximum SST anomaly magnitude of 1.7°C is approximately every five warm events and every seven cold events.