A mechanism for the recurrence of wintertime midlatitude SST anomalies

Examines upper-ocean temperature observations and simulations with a mixed layer model. The data were collected at six ocean weather stations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific. Concurrent and lead-lag correlations are used to investigate temperature variations associated with the seasonal cycle in both the observations and the model simulations. Results suggest that vertical mixing processes allow ocean temperature anomalies created over a deep mixed layer in winter to be preserved below the surface in summer and reappear at the surface in the following fall, confirming the Namias-Born hypothesis. -from Authors