Figure 2: (Top two panels) Direct comparison maps between the drifting buoy and the OSCAR velocity vectors during December 2003 in the central equatorial Pacific Ocean.  Bright vectors (red for eastward, blue for westward) represent the collocated vectors for (top) the drifters, (bottom) OSCAR. The background field (faded vectors) in both panels is the OSCAR monthly mean for December 2003. (Bottom panels) Scatter plots of the zonal and meridional drifting buoy data versus the OSCAR data. Solid line is the y=x line. Dashed line is the neutral regression line between the two data sets. N is the number of data relative to this particular monthly period and region, md the mean difference, corr the correlation and sk the skill.