Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
In October, 1984, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution SOFAR float
group began a three-year long field program to observe the low frequency
currents in the Canary Basin. The principal scientific goal was to learn how
advection and diffusion by these currents determine the shape and amplitude of
the Mediterranean salt tongue. Fourteen floats were launched at a depth of
1100 min a cluster centered on 32N, 24W, and seven other floats were launched
incoherently along a north/south line from 24N to 37N. At the same time
investigators from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of
Rhode Island used four other SOFAR floats to tag a submesoscale lens of
Mediterranean water. Slightly over twenty years of float trajectories were
p reduced during the first year of the experiment.
In this report we briefly describe the 1984 field operations and show the
first year's SOFAR float data. Perhaps the most striking result is that
westward flow within the Mediterranean salt tongue was found to be confined to
a rather narrow jet {roughly 150 km in meridional extent) which had a mean
speed of roughly 2 em s -l. To the north or south of this jet the mean flow
was much weaker and eastward. This suggests that currents associated with the
salt tongue itself {rather than the gyre scale circulation) may be most
important for determining the salt distribution.
Description:
Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation
under grant Nos. OCE 82-14066 and OCE 86-00055.
Keywords:
Ocean currents
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Technical Report
