This folder contains the matlab files for the maps of heat content and STMW thickness, from 2001 to 2011, as described in Variations of the North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water from Direct Observations" by Luc Rainville; Steven R. Jayne; Meghan F. Cronin, J of Climate, 2014. 

Luc Rainville, 1/3/2014   (rainville@apl.uw.edu)

===========================

The file "KE_floats.mat" contains a structure array called 'floats', which includes a subset of all the ARGO profiling floats found in the Western Pacific for the period considered in our study. 'time', 'lat', and 'lon' of each profiles (temperature, 't', salinity, 's', and potential vorticity, 'q', as function of pressure, 'p') are included. 
Also in the same structure are the top ('STMW_z1') and bottom ('STMW_z2') and 'thickness' of the STMW for each profile, the integrated PV ('int_pv', as calculated following Bo Qiu's papers), the mixed layer depth ('MLD') and temperature ('MLT'), the steric heights relative to 500, 1000, and 1500 m ('SH_XXXXm'). Integrated heat content is calculated for the mixed layer ('Q_ML'), the top 500m ('Q_500m') and to the depth of the 16degC isotherm ('Q_T16', the depth being stored in 'D_T16'). The SSH anomalies interpolated in space and time from the Aviso SSHA maps at each profiles are stored in 'ssha', and the absolute SSH (including the mean of M&N, used in the paper) are in 'ssh'. 

The file "bathymetry_SS.mat" contains 'bottom' is a structure array with the Smith and Sandwell bathymetry  (for plotting)

The file "maps_stmw_thickness.mat" contains the results of the objective maps. LAT, LON, and TIME are the center points of the 3D grid. 'area' is simple the surface area in meters of each grid point. 
  'map_thickness0' is the map of the thickness simply based on the SSH maps
  'map_thickness' is the map of the thickness constrained by the float data
  'map_thickness_E' is the "error" (places that are unconstrained) map of the thickness as constrained by the float data. 

The file "maps_heat_content.map" contains similar fields, for the depth-integrated heat content. 

Two additional m-file can be used to plot an example for the STMW thickness (plot_maps_stmw.m) and heat content (plot_maps_heat_content.m). Although these do not use m-map (as in the paper), they should give a good idea on how to use that data. 

Please contact me with any additional questions, or to collaborate on further studies…