Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-jbqgn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-24T00:58:57.789Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Droguing of Meddy Pinball and Seeding with Alace Floats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

R.D. Pingree
R.D. Pingree
Affiliation:
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, PL1 2PB
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper reports the results of a hydrographic survey and the successful deliberate deep droguing of a meddy (Pinball) and the seeding of its core with two ALACE floats. The drogued buoy results give important kinematic properties of the eddy core in real timesemicolon the ALACE have allowed the position of the meddy to be tracked for seven months. Pinball was found against the continental slope near Lisbon canyon. The maximum core salinity was 36·564 psu, at a depth of 1260 m, but the maximum rotation rate with period ~2·5 d was in the upper core near 700 m, where temperatures reached 13·2°C. The azimuthal transport to a radius of 50 km was ~13 Sv. Pinball moved from the continental slope near Lisbon to the central Tagus Abyssal Plain, returned towards the continental slope and then moved westwards crossing the central Tagus Abyssal Plain a second time. At times it had a marked remote sensing infra-red sea-surface signature. It moved ~550 km over 204 d and the near real-time data meant that, in principle, this eddy could have been re-surveyed, redrogued or reseeded with floats during this period.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , February 1995 , pp. 235 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambar, I. & Howe, M.R., 1979. Observations of the Mediterranean outflow. I. Mixing in the Mediterranean outflow. Deep-Sea Research, 26,535–554.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angel, M.V. & Fasham, M.J.R., 1983. Eddies and biological processes. In Eddies in marine science (ed. A.R., Robinson), pp. 493–524. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Armi, L., Hebert, D., Oakey, N., Price, J., Richardson, P., Rossby, T. & Ruddick, B., 1989. Two years in the life of a Mediterranean salt lens. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 19, 354—370.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowman, Mj., 1985. On the p-induced coastal trapping of a baroclinic eddy. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 15, 817–822.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colin De, Verdiere A., 1992. On the southward motion of Mediterranean salt lenses. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 22,413–420.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cushman-Roisin, B., Chassignet, E.P. & Tang, B., 1990. Westward motion of mesoscale eddies. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 20, 758–768.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, R.E., Webb, D.C., Regier, L.A. & Dufour, J., 1992. The Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer (ALACE). Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 9,264–285.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonella, J., 1972. A rotary-component method for analysing meteorological and oceanographic vector time series. Deep-Sea Research, 19,833–846.Google Scholar
Howe, M.R., Abdullah, M.I. & Deetae, S., 1974. An interpretation of the double T-S maxima in the Mediterranean outflow using chemical tracers. Journal of Marine Research, 32, 377–386.Google Scholar
Kerr, R.A., 1981. Small eddies proliferating in the Atlantic. Science, New York, 213, 632–634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kunze, E., 1985. Near-inertial wave propagation in geostrophic shear. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 15,544–565.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ledwell, J.R., Watson, Aj. & Law, C.S., 1993. Evidence for slow mixing across the pycnocline from an open-ocean tracer-release experiment. Nature, London, 364, 701–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maillard, C, 1986. Atlas hydrologique de I'Atlaniiaue nord-est. Brest: IFREMER.Google Scholar
McDowell, S.E. & Rossby, H.T., 1978. Mediterranean water: an intense mesoscale eddy off the Bahamas. Science, New York, 202, 1085–1087.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nof, D., 1981. On the (3-induced movement of isolated baroclinic eddies). Journal of Physical Oceanography, 11,1662–1672.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pingree, R.D., 1993. Flow of surface waters to the west of the British Isles and in the Bay of Biscay. Deep-Sea Research II, 40, 369–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pingree, R.D., 1994. Winter warming in the southern Bay of Biscay and Lagrangian eddy kinematics from a deep-drogued Argos buoy. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 74,107–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pingree, R.D. & Le Cann, B., 1991. Drifting buoy in the field of flow of two eddies on East Thulean Rise (north-east Atlantic). Journal of Geophysical Research, 96,16759–16777.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pingree, R.D. & Le Cann, B., 1993. A Shallow MEDDY (a SMEDDY) from the secondary Mediterranean salinity maximum. Journal of Geophysical Research, 98, 20169–20185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, 1992. RRS ‘Charles Darwin'Cruise 66/92 Report, 4 March - 6 April, 85 pp. Plymouth Marine Laboratory.Google Scholar
Plymouth Marine Laboratory, 1994. RRS ‘Charles Darwin’ Cruise 83/94 Report, 13 December 1993 -13 January 1994, 91 pp. Plymouth Marine Laboratory.Google Scholar
Price, J.F. et al., 1993. Mediterranean outflow mixing and dynamics. Science, New York, 259, 1277–1282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richardson, P.L., Hufford, G.E., Limeburner, R. & Brown, W.S., 1994. North Brazil current retroflection eddies. Journal of Geophysical Research, 99, 5081–5093.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, P.L., Walsh, D., Armi, L., Schroder, M. & Price, J.F., 1989. Tracking three meddies with SOFAR floats. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 19, 371–383.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruddick, B. & Hebert, D., 1988. The mixing of meddy ‘Sharon’. In Small-scale turbulence and mixing in the ocean. Proceedings of the 19th International Liege Symposium on ocean hydrodynamics (ed. J.C.J., Nihoul and B.M., Jamart), pp. 249–262. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Schultz, Tokos K. & Rossby, T., 1991. Kinematics and dynamics of a Mediterranean salt lens. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 21, 879–892.Google Scholar
Stammer, D., Hinrichsen, H. & Kase, R.H., 1991. Can meddies be detected by satellite altimetry? Journal of Geophysical Research, 96, 7005–7014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swallow, J.C., 1969. A deep eddy off Cape St Vincent. Deep-Sea Research, 16, supplement, 285–295.Google Scholar
Zenk, W., 1975. On the Mediterranean outflow west of Gibraltar. Meteor Forschungsergebnisse. Reihe A. Berlin, 16, 23–34.Google Scholar
Zenk, W. & Armi, L., 1990. The complex spreading pattern of Mediterranean water off the Portuguese continental slope. Deep-Sea Research, 37,1805–1823.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zenk, W., Schultz, Tokos K. & Boebel, O., 1992. New observations of meddy movement south of the Tejo Plateau. Geophysical Research Letters, 19, 2389–2392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar