North Brazil Current Rings Experiment : RAFOS float data report : November 1998 – June 2000

• Main Authors: Wooding, Christine M., Richardson, Philip L., Pacheco, Marguerite A., Glickson, Deborah A., Fratantoni, David M.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 2002
• Subjects: Tropical Atlantic circulation; Mesoscale rings; RAFOS floats; Seward Johnson (Ship) Cruise NBC 1; Seward Johnson (Ship) Cruise NBC 2; Seward Johnson (Ship) Cruise NBC 3; Seward Johnson (Ship) Cruise NBC 4; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/43

Twenty-one RAFOS floats were tracked at depths of 200-1000 meters in and around several North Brazil Current Rings between November 1998 and June 2000. This was part of an experiment to study the role of these current rings in transporting upper level South Atlantic water across the equatorial-tropical gyre boundary into the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. The float trajectories in combination with surface drifters and satellite imagery reveal the sometimes complex life histories of several rings and their fate as they collide with the Lesser Antilles Islands. This report describes the float trajectories, the velocity, temperature, and depth time series, and a preliminary analysis of the float data. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. OCE-9729765 and OCE-0136477.