Mesoscale ocean eddy dataset in the Lofoten Basin from Satellite Altimetry ...

• Main Authors: Raj, Roshin P, Halo, Issufo, Johannessen, Johnny Andre, Eldevik, Tor, Nilsen, Jan Even Ø
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2016
• Subjects: File content; File name; File format; File size; Uniform resource locator/link to file; Lofoten; Norwegian Sea
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.865235; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.865235

The Lofoten Basin is the most eddy rich region in the Norwegian Sea. In this paper, the characteristics of these eddies are investigated from a comprehensive database of nearly two decades of satellite altimeter data (1995-2013) together with Argo profiling floats and surface drifter data. An automated method identified 1695/1666 individual anticyclonic/cyclonic eddies in the Lofoten Basin from more than 10,000 altimeter-based eddy observations. The eddies are found to be predominantly generated and residing locally. The spatial distributions of lifetime, occurrence, generation sites, size, intensity, and drift of the eddies are studied in detail. The anticyclonic eddies in the Lofoten Basin are the most long-lived eddies (>60 days), especially in the western part of the basin. We reveal two hotspots of eddy occurrence on either side of the Lofoten Basin. Furthermore, we infer a cyclonic drift of eddies in the western Lofoten Basin. Barotropic energy conversion rates reveals energy transfer from the slope ... : The detection of eddies in the Lofoten Basin from satellite altimeter data are done using the automated hybrid algorithm described by Halo (2012). The automated hybrid algorithm described by Halo (2012) combines the closed contours of streamlines of the sea-surface height (Chelton, Schlax, and Samelson 2011) and Okubo-Weiss parameter (Isern-Fontanet, García-Ladona, and Font 2006; Chelton et al. 2007). Eddies were tracked in space and consecutive time-steps with reference to the centres of eddies, in a generalized non-dimensional property space, following the method proposed by Penven et al. (2005). More details given in Raj et al., 2016. The dataset provides latitude and longitude positions of individual 6983 anticyclonic and 6070 cyclonic eddies identified during the time-period 1995-2013. Eddy properties such as eddy intensity, radius, amplitude,vorticity, translational velocities are also provided. ...