On the geographic variability of oceanic mesoscale motions ...

• Main Author: Thomson, Keith Alec
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Northeast Atlantic; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0053251; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0053251

Quasi-synoptic expendable bathythermograph data were acquired, from the Canadian Armed Forces, the United States Navy and the United States National Oceanographic Data Center, for the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. On the basis of these data and the results of previous studies using climatological data, six geographic regions were defined: the high-energy regions of the Northwest Atlantic and Northwest Pacific, and the low-energy regions of the Northeast Atlantic, Northeast Pacific, South Atlantic and South Pacific. Spatial series of two variables, representative of the upper layer (400 m) mesoscale variability, were obtained for each section - the mid- thermocline temperature and the geopotential anomaly (0 - 4000 kPa). The central moments and the wavenumber spectra of each variable were estimated for the six geographic regions, the combined high-energy areas and the combined low-energy areas. In the high-energy regions and the Northeast Atlantic, it was found that the temperature between 350 and 400 m is ...