Finestructure, Fronts and Currents in the Pacific Marginal Sea-Ice Zone - MIZPAC 78.

• Main Author: Small,Warren Edgar
• Other Authors: NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1979
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; Acoustics; *OCEANOGRAPHIC DATA; *UNDERWATER ACOUSTICS; *SEA ICE; TEMPERATURE; OCEAN CURRENTS; THESES; SALINITY; THERMOCLINES; UPWELLING; CHUKCHI SEA; ARCTIC OCEAN; MIZPAC 78 cruises; USCGC glacier; PE62759N; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Chukchi Sea; Pacific; Chukchi; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA071970; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA071970

Sharp vertical temperature fronts, complex temperature inversions and current patterns in the Chukchi Sea during MIZPAC 78 in July 1978 were investigated in a further effort to define the mechanisms for the formation and distribution of finestructure. In conformity with previous findings, upper and lower-layer fronts near the ice tended to be coincident in the V-shaped zones between bifurcating current streams; such fronts were not associated with significant finestructure. Previous thought would indicate that finestructure is found near wedge-like fronts. However, the situations for which this could be tested in 1978 were too few to be conclusive. Two of the principal ice embayments, which were apparently caused by warm water streams, were found in approximately the same locations as in previous years. Upper-level current streams, deduced from the ice melt-back into embayments and from warm-water cores, appear to be bathymetrically steered. Both of the above mentioned bays contain temperature finestructure.