Figure 1.
CSP marks the shallow Coral Sea Plateau and GBR refers to the Great Barrier Reef. Isobaths for 200 m, 1000 m, 2000 m and 4000 m are displayed. The bathymetry was derived from DBDB2 (Digital Bathymetric Data Base; an ongoing project of the U. S. Naval Research Laboratory).
Figure 2.
Yearly Argo deployments and failures.
The number of new deployments and failures of Argo floats within or nearby the Coral Sea is shown per year.
Figure 3.
Total Argo CTD profile availability.
The distribution of total number of Argo CTD profiles available within the Coral Sea prior to 2009 is displayed.
Figure 4.
MLD seasonality and evolution of MLD data availability.
A) Temporal trend of the mixed layer depth (MLDref) within the Coral Sea since 1982. Pre-2001 MLDs were derived from CTD profiles of the World Ocean Database (WOD). The 2001–2003 period contains data from both WOD and Argo. B) Monthly observations of WOD and Argo mixed layer depths (MLDref). For clarity, data in B) are shown in monthly groups, slightly offset, rather than in Julian days. The line of best fit (solid-black for WOD, dashed-grey for Argo) was created using the least-squared local regression (LOESS) method.
Figure 5.
Paths of Argo floats deposited within or near the Coral Sea.
Figure 6.
Seasonality of sea surface temperature (SST).
Spatial distribution of SST during A) January–March, B) April–June, C) July–September and D) October–December. The SST data has been obtained from Argo floats and represent temperatures in the upper 10 m.
Figure 7.
Geographical position of Argo floats within the Coral Sea.
The colour scheme of the Argo data is denoting ocean heat content (OHC, 106 kJ/250 m), which was integrated to a depth of 250 m. Locations are only displayed for CTD profiles that encompass the entire top 250 m of water.
Table 1.
Comparison of ILDref with the depths obtained by four different threshold values.
Table 2.
Comparison of MLDref with the depths obtained by four different threshold values.
Figure 8.
Locations within the Coral Sea where salinity inversions were observed.
Figure 10.
Seasonal mean precipitation rates (in mm/day) for January–March (top left), April–June (top right), July–September (bottom left) and October–December (bottom right). The CMAP Precipitation data is provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA (data freely accessible at http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.cmap.html).
Figure 9.
Barrier layer thickness (BLT) with respect to A) Julian day and B) geographical location.
In figure B, only the BLTs exceeding 5 m are displayed.
Figure 11.
Evolution of the mixed layer depth (MLDref) over a 4.5 year period.
The line of best fit (solid-black for subtropics, dashed-grey for tropics) was created using the least-squared local regression (LOESS) method.
Figure 12.
Seasonal variation of the mixed layer depth (MLD).
MLD is shown for January–March (top left), April–June (top right), July–September (bottom left) and October–December (bottom right).