Satellite observed cloud cover in relation to sea surface temperature patterns in the Western Australian region

Reports from merchant ships are used to extend observations from satellite tracked buoys and a survey ship in an attempt to produce quasi-synoptic maps of sea surface temperature (SST) for two regions in the vicinity of southwestern Australia, and for periods each of the order of two months duration. Satellite-observed cloud patterns examined in. relation to these derived estimates of SST suggest some evidence for (i) an increase of convective cloudiness downwind of a mesoscale warm eddy in the ocean and (ii) a coincidence in space and time of a high frequency of atmospheric frontal activity and a substantial meridional trough-ridge pattern of SST in the vicinity of the subtropical convergence. The latter SST pattern is consistent with the observed persistence of a broadscale atmospheric flow pattern but also with the deeper ocean structure.