The Annual ICES Ocean Climate Status Summary 2004/2005

In almost all areas of the eastern and western North Atlantic during 2004, temperature and salinity in the upper layers remained higher than the long-term average, with new records set in numerous regions. There was isolated cooling off the eastern North American coast. In most areas the trend over the last decade (1994–2004) has been one of warming. Figure 1 shows annual-mean normalised temperature and salinity anomalies for selected time-series in the upper layers of the ocean around the North Atlantic Region. The trends in these data over the past 10 years are illustrated in Table 1. Table 2 contains additional information about each of the time-series. The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index during the winter of 2004 was negative, but both the Iceland Low and the Azores High weakened. A mid-latitude low pressure anomaly associated with the reduced Azores High was stronger in the west, resulting in pressure anomaly patterns over the western North Atlantic consistent with a strongly negative NAO.