Temperature strongly influences marine organisms, through their metabolism, growth and behavior, including species that live on or near the bottom, such as shellfish, crabs and flounder. While there have been many studies documenting sea surface temperature variability, much less is known about bottom water temperatures, due to a lack of observations. Here, we use a recently developed reanalysis, which combines a wide array of observations with a computer model to obtain a fine-scale view of the coastal ocean. We examined processes that influence bottom water temperature along the west coast of the contiguous United States and Baja California, where the ocean depth is less than 400 m. The temperature near the bottom and at the surface often vary together, especially during winter where the ocean is shallow when storms vertically mix the upper ocean. Deeper in the ocean, vertical movement of the thermocline, where the temperature decreases rapidly with depth, can also generate large bottom water temperature anomalies. Bottom water temperatures are more strongly affected by winds off the Pacific Northwest US coast and ocean processes initiated in the tropics further south. ENSO events have a strong influence on bottom water temperatures, in addition to those at the surface.

The archive provided here is approximately 17.5 GB and consists of the NCAR Command Language codes and netCDF data files to reproduce the figures in the related journal article.

The netCDF files are available to download from the link in Related URL through Globus. See "Additional Information" below.