Eddies in the Canada Basin, Arctic Ocean, observed from ice-tethered profilers

View/ Open
Date
2008-01Author
Timmermans, Mary-Louise
Concept link
Toole, John M.
Concept link
Proshutinsky, Andrey
Concept link
Krishfield, Richard A.
Concept link
Plueddemann, Albert J.
Concept link
Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/4041As published
https://doi.org/10.1175/2007JPO3782.1DOI
10.1175/2007JPO3782.1Abstract
Five ice-tethered profilers (ITPs), deployed between 2004 and 2006, have provided detailed potential temperature θ and salinity S profiles from 21 anticyclonic eddy encounters in the central Canada Basin of the Arctic Ocean. The 12–35-m-thick eddies have center depths between 42 and 69 m in the Arctic halocline, and are shallower and less dense than the majority of eddies observed previously in the central Canada Basin. They are characterized by anomalously cold θ and low stratification, and have horizontal scales on the order of, or less than, the Rossby radius of deformation (about 10 km). Maximum azimuthal speeds estimated from dynamic heights (assuming cyclogeostrophic balance) are between 9 and 26 cm s−1, an order of magnitude larger than typical ambient flow speeds in the central basin. Eddy θ–S and potential vorticity properties, as well as horizontal and vertical scales, are consistent with their formation by instability of a surface front at about 80°N that appears in historical CTD and expendable CTD (XCTD) measurements. This would suggest eddy lifetimes longer than 6 months. While the baroclinic instability of boundary currents cannot be ruled out as a generation mechanism, it is less likely since deeper eddies that would originate from the deeper-reaching boundary flows are not observed in the survey region.
Description
Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 133–145, doi:10.1175/2007JPO3782.1.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Journal of Physical Oceanography 38 (2008): 133–145Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
CTD-GTC profiles from GEOTRACES-Arctic Section cruise HLY1502 in 2015 (U.S. GEOTRACES Arctic project)
Cutter, Gregory; Kadko, David C.; Landing, William M. (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-07-08)CTD-GTC profiles from GEOTRACES-Arctic Section cruise HLY1502 in 2015 For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version ... -
Ice-tethered profiler measurements of dissolved oxygen under permanent ice cover in the Arctic Ocean
Timmermans, Mary-Louise; Krishfield, Richard A.; Laney, Samuel R.; Toole, John M. (American Meteorological Society, 2010-11)Four ice-tethered profilers (ITPs), deployed between 2006 and 2009, have provided year-round dissolved oxygen (DO) measurements from the surface mixed layer to 760-m depth under the permanent sea ice cover in the Arctic ... -
The Ice-Tethered Profiler : Argo of the Arctic
Toole, John M.; Krishfield, Richard A.; Timmermans, Mary-Louise; Proshutinsky, Andrey (Oceanography Society, 2011-09)Ice-Tethered Profilers (ITPs), first deployed in fall 2004, have significantly increased the number of high-quality upper-ocean water-property observations available from the central Arctic. This article reviews the ...