The Kiritimati Island and R/V Ronald H. Brown ENRR 2016 Datasets: Detailed Views of Local Responses to El Niño

During the early months of the 2016 El Niño, scientists led by the Earth System Research Laboratory's Physical Sciences Division put together NOAA's El Niño Rapid Response (ENRR) Field Campaign.  This presentation focuses on the in-situ observations collected over the near-equatorial East-Central Pacific Ocean.  From 26 January to 28 March 2016, twice-daily radiosonde launches were made from Kiritimati (pronounced "Christmas") Island (2.0°N, 157.4°E); standard surface meteorology observations, including rainfall, were also measured.  From 16 February to 16 March 2016, four to eight radiosondes were launched each day from the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown as it travelled from Hawaii to service buoys along longitudes 140°W and 125°W and then back to port in San Diego, California.  Shipboard instruments made continuous measurements of surface meteorology, sea surface temperature, and downwelling shortwave radiation.  Such rapid and remote field deployments led to some uncommon challenges; these will be noted and related to some of the novel approaches used to reprocess the data.  Quality-controlled surface and sonde data released in late 2016 will be used to highlight the local response to the east-central Pacific's extremely warm waters.  Details of the additional post-processing being performed on the sonde data, in preparation for the early 2017 release of updated sonde datasets, will be presented.