Eddies of the Western Arctic Ocean - Their Characteristics and Importance to the Energy, Heat, and Salt Balance.

• Main Author: Manley,Thomas Owen
• Other Authors: LAMONT-DOHERTY GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY PALISADES NY
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1981
• Subjects: Physical and Dynamic Oceanography; *OCEAN CURRENTS; HEAT TRANSFER; TEMPERATURE; WATER FLOW; MASS TRANSFER; KINETIC ENERGY; SALTS; SALINITY; SEA WATER; BEAUFORT SEA; ARCTIC OCEAN; *Ocean eddies; WUNR307359; Amerasia Basin; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Chukchi Sea; Barrow; Beaufort Sea; Chukchi; Point Barrow; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA098170; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA098170

With the undertaking of the main 1975-76 AIDJEX experiment located in the central Beaufort Sea, four manned camps collected for one year the largest and most complete set of oceanographic data within the Arctic Ocean to this date. During this time, a total of 146 separate crossings of eddies were observed. using T-S signatures, 31 of the 146 crossings are found to represent duplicate crossings of 12 individual eddies, making a total of 127 separate eddies observed during the one year. On the basis of the AIDJEX data set, arctic eddies have been found to: (1) be prevalent in the Amerasia Basin and in particular the Beaufort Sea, (2) predominantly reside in the depth range of 50 to 300 meters although deeper eddies are also present, (3) contain more than half of the total amount of kinetic energy in the upper 200 m of the Beaufort Sea, (4) transfer kinetic energy to the mean flow, (5) be predominately anticyclonic in their rotational tendency, (6) apparently originate north of Point Barrow, Alaska as a result of instability in the eastward flowing Alaskan Coastal Current although there are a few eddies in which T-S data may indicate the possibility of local origin, (7) transfer fresher, less saline water into the deep Arctic Ocean from the Chukchi Sea, (8) transfer both warm and cold water into the deep Arctic Ocean in response to the seasonally changing shelf conditions, (9) translate in response to barotropic forcing over short time scales, although over longer time periods move with the mean geostrophic field, and (10) decay in a clockwise pattern from their point of origin, which is consistent with the upper layer movement of the Beaufort Sea.