q 2002 American Meteorological Society The Antarctic Circumpolar Current between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia

• Main Authors: Michel Arhan, Alberto C. Naveira, Garabato, Karen J. Heywood, David P. Stevens
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: Antarctic; Argentine; Ewing; Falkland Plateau; Georgia Basin; Maurice; Maurice Ewing Bank; The Antarctic; Antarc*; North Atlantic Deep Water; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.539.4956; http://www.uea.ac.uk/~dps/publications/ANGHS02.pdf

Hydrographic and lowered acoustic Doppler current profiler data along a line from the Falkland Islands to South Georgia via the Maurice Ewing Bank are used to estimate the flow of circumpolar water into the Argentine Basin, and to study the interaction of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current with the Falkland Plateau. The estimated net transport of 129 6 21 Sv (Sv [ 106 m3 s21) across the section is shared between three major current bands. One is associated with the Subantarctic Front (SAF; 52 6 6 Sv), and the other two with branches of the Polar Front (PF) over the sill of the Falkland Plateau (44 6 9 Sv) and in the northwestern Georgia Basin (45 6 9 Sv). The latter includes a local reinforcement (;20 Sv) by a deep anticyclonic recirculation around the Maurice Ewing Bank. While the classical hydrographic signature of the PF stands out in this eastbound branch, it is less distinguishable in the northbound branch over the plateau. Other circulation features are a southward entrainment of diluted North Atlantic Deep Water from the Argentine Basin over the eastern part of the Falkland Plateau, and an abyssal anticyclonic flow in the western Georgia Basin, opposite to what was generally assumed. The different behavior of the SAF and PF at the Falkland Plateau (no structural modification of the former and partitioning of the latter) is attributed to the PF being deeper than the sill depth on the upstream side of the plateau, unlike the SAF. It is suggested that the partitioning takes place at a location where the 2500-m and