Objective sea-level pressure analysis for data-sparse areas.

A computer procedure, described in an earlier study, uses the wind speed field near the ocean surface in combination with a small number of observations of pressure and wind velocity to specify the maritime sea-level pressure field. An improved version was used to analyze the pressure distribution over the North Pacific Ocean for eleven synoptic times in February 1967. Independent knowledge of the central pressures of lows is shown to reduce the analysis errors for very sparse data coverage. The application of planned remote sensing of sea-level wind speeds is shown to make a significant contribution to the quality of the analysis especially in the high gradient midlatitudes and for sparse coverage of conventional observations (such as over Southern Hemisphere oceans). Uniform distribution of the available observations of sea-level pressure and wind velocity yields results far superior to those derived from a random distribution.