Collaborative Research: Observations and Models of Upper Ocean Water Mass Formation and Evolution in the Western North Atlantic

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Support is provided to study the formation of eighteen-degree water (EDW) in the western North Atlantic, where the heat flux from the ocean to the atmosphere is as large as or larger than the surface heat flux anywhere in the world. Subduction, circulation around the gyre, and temporal variability of the EDW would be addressed using PALACE float data from the Atlantic Circulation and Climate Experiment (ACCE), XBT data collected from ships of opportunity, and a series of studies using the MICOM isopycnal coordinate numerical model. The combined analyses of the observations and model output will focus on the identification of the sites of EDW formation, the identification of EDW properties, the quantification of the amount of EDW formed for a given year as well as large scale circulation impacts of EDW formation and its relation to climate phenomena. This proposal is a contribution to the Analysis, Interpretation, Synthesis and Modeling phase of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE).