Recent advances in the knowledge of the climatic variations in the tropical Pacific Ocean

Owing to the free participation of a ships of opportunity network, the SURTROPAC (SURvey of the TROpical PACific) programme is continuously surveying the western tropical pacific with surface measurements (meteorology, temperature and salinity) and subsurface measurements (0-400m thermal profile). The Western Pacific Ocean may be described from two perspectives: (a) as a heat pool that concentrates thermal energy and returns it to the atmosphere and the rest of the ocean; and (b) as an area particularly sensitive to inter-annual oscillations associated with the El Nino phenomenon.