C-vector for identification of oceanic secondary circulations across Arctic Fronts in Fram Strait

• Main Author: Peter C. Chu
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1987
• Subjects: Physical; Arctic; Greenland; Fram Strait
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.535.1098; http://faculty.nps.edu/pcchu/web_paper/grl/cvec.pdf

[1] Secondary circulation, referring to the motion relative to a basic flow (geostrophic and hydrostatic balanced), occurs often in the ocean such as deep convection and circulations driven by fronts and eddies. It affects the general circulation and the mass, heat, salt, and energy balance. The oceanic secondary circulation is difficult to measure directly, but is easy to be identified by pseudovorticity using routine observations. A C-vector method, commonly used in atmospheric mesoscale moist frontogenesis, is applied to oceanography for identifying frontal secondary circulation in Fram Strait using Conductivity-Temperature-Depth data collected during a large-scale hydrographic survey on R/V Valdivia cruise-54 of the eastern Greenland