Deep Water. Interannual Variability of Antarctic Hydrographic Structure and Frontal Zones along Meridional Sections between Syowa Station and Southern Africa

• Main Authors: Southern Ocean, Harold Solomon, Kaoru Ushida, Takashi Suzuki
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1999
• Subjects: Antarctic; Antarctic Ocean; Syowa Station; The Antarctic; Weddell; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.615.9898; http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/pdf/5601/56010001.pdf

Six years of quasi-meridional crossings of the Antarctic Ocean from Antarctica to southern Africa between 4°W and 16°E longitude are analyzed, with emphasis on temperature and salinity distributions. Data are sparse, but (particularly in the south-ern part of the sections) adequate to show significant variations in the latitude/depth distributions and T-S characteristics of the principal water masses. In particular, the cross-sectional area occupied by Warm Deep Water (Weddell Deep Water) dropped by about one third in 1968. Positions of major features associated with the Antarctic Divergence varied by up to 5 degrees of latitude. The surface temperature gradient often observed at the Antarctic Divergence appears to be the surface expression of a shallow (possibly seasonal) thermocline which sometimes slopes upward to intersect the sea surface. There is a clear need for more closely spaced and consistently planned data from Antarctic cruises, particularly those on which physical oceanography is an ancillary activity. As a bare minimum, much more closely spaced surface tempera-ture (and if possible also salinity) measurements would be useful. (1982/1983). The Fuji has since been replaced by the