Collaborative Research: Warm Water Pathways and Intergyre Exchange in the Northeastern North Atlantic

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9531877 Bower In this project, the PIs will study the North Atlantic Current, which transports subtropical water northeastward from the Gulf Stream, and the Poleward Eastern Boundary Current, which carries Mediterranean Outflow Water northward along the European continental slope. These two current systems are thought to be the two most likely sources of warm, salty water that is transformed into intermediate and deep water in the subpolar region. Specific objectives are to: 1) provide a quantitative description of the bifurcation of the North Atlantic Current east of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge; 2) assess the importance of meridional eddy fluxes, compared to large-scale advection, in the northward flux of heat and salt in the northeastern North Atlantic; and 3) establish the degree of continuity of the Poleward Eastern Boundary Current to the entrance to the Norwegian Sea and the fate of the Mediterranean Outflow Water carried by this current. To meet these objectives, a total of 68 isopycnal, acoustically-tracked RAFOS floats will be deployed in the eastern Basin of the North Atlantic, forty in and adjacent to the North Atlantic Current, and twenty-eight near the eastern boundary. The floats will drift submerged for two years, sampling three cooling seasons, with tracking provided once daily using moored sound sources. This study is a contribution to the US Atlantic Circulation and Climate Experiment (ACCE), and to the International World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE). The high-resolution RAFOS floats will specifically address important features of the circulation that have relatively short time and/or spatial scales, such as bifurcations, eddy mixing and boundary flows.