Monthly and Annual contour lines of the zero and the positive maximum of the Wind Stress Curl over Western North Atlantic during 1980-2019 and the Gulf Stream path during 1993-2019.

• Main Authors: Ian Gifford, Adrienne Silver, Avijit Gangopadhyay, Magdalena Andres, Glen Gawarkiewicz, Hilde Oliver
• Other Authors: Glen Gawarkawiecz, Robert Fisher, Jianyi Jay Wang
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Ocean-Air Interaction; Gulf Stream; Force and Response; Ocean Circulation; Wind Stress Curl; Altimetry; Zero Wind Stress Curl; Maximum Wind Stress Curl; Gulf Stream Path; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8217388

This dataset includes multiple fields: (i) files for monthly and annual fields for the max curl line and the zero curl line at 0.1 degree longitudinal resolutions; (ii) files for monthly and annual GS path obtained from Altimetry and originally processed by Andres (2016) at 0.1 degree longitudinal resolution. The maximum curl line (MCL) and the zero curl line (ZCL) calculations are briefly described here and are based on the original wind data (at 1.25 x 1.25 degree) provided by the Japanese reanalysis (JRA-55; Kobayashi et al., 2015) and available at https://zenodo.org/record/8200832 (Gifford et al. 2023). For details see Gifford, 2023. The wind stress curl (WSC) fields used for the MCL and ZCL calculations extend from 80W to 45W and 30N to 45N at the 1.25 by 1.25-degree resolution. The MCL is defined as the maximum WSC values greater than zero within the domain per 1.25 degree longitude. As such, it is a function of longitude and is not a constant WSC value unlike the zero contour. High wind stress curl values that occurred near the coast were not included within this calculation. After MCL at the 1.25 resolution was obtained the line was smoothed with a gaussian smoothing and interpolated on to a 0.1 longitudinal resolution. The smoothed MCL lines at 0.1 degree resolution are provided in separate files for monthly and annual averages (2 files). Similarly, 2 other files (monthly and annual) are provided for the ZCL. Like the MCL, the ZCL is a line derived from 1.25 degree longitude throughout the domain under the condition that it's the line of zero WSC. The ZCLis constant at 0 and does not vary spatially like the MCL. If there are more than one location of zero curl for a given longitude the first location south of the MCL is selected. Similar to the MCL, the ZCL was smoothed with a gaussian smoothing and interpolated on to a 0.1 longitudinal resolution. The above files span the years from 1980 through 2019. So, the monthly files have 480 months starting January 1980, and the annual files have 40 years of ...