Collaborative Research: A new Account of Souther Ocean Waters: Characteristics, Variability, Production

Texas A&M Research Foundation, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

A recently quality-controlled database of hydrographic stations collected by the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) will be used to create a high-resolution climatology for the region south of 25 S. A fine-scale volumetric census of Southern Ocean waters will be created based on the climatology and objectively mapped property fields. Regions of high variance in the climatology and volumetric census will be inspected using profile data as possible sites of temporal and mesoscale variability. Estimates of water mass transformations and mixing rates associated with the production of new deep and bottom Antarctic waters over the shelf/slope regime will result from the quantitative analysis of classic tracer distributions, volumetric census data, and mean cross-slope velocity fields. Broader impacts: A collection of maps and vertical sections will be produced as static figures that can be browsed by visitors to our web site to illustrate the water mass structure and circulation of the Southern Ocean. An interactive tool will allow users to choose particular datasets or subsets, different grids and correlation lengths, and several plotting options to generate custom figures. These features may be useful as classroom aids in the teaching of descriptive oceanography and mapping techniques. The gridded climatology and census data will be made available on the web site for use by other researchers. A high quality version of the figures will also be produced for inclusion in a printed version of the WOCE atlases.