Ocean Striations Revealed by Drifters and Satellite Altimetry Confirmed with Historical XBT Profiles

N. Maximenko (IPRC), O. Melnichenko (IPRC), P. Niiler (SIO), and H. Sasaki (ESC)

Mean dynamic oceantopography

Temperature at 100m

Latitude

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(f)

(e)

High-passed filtering of the multiyear mean dynamic ocean topography (MDOT) constructed using drifter and altimeter data reveals coherent quasi-zonal jet-like features (a). The MDOT for the region off the coast of North America is shown in (b) along with the high-passed values in (c).

The 100-m temperature field based on XBT data averaged since 1966 (d) when filtered (e) shows mesoscale features that are coherent with the jets. The top panel of (f) shows the variation of high-passed MDOT (red), 100 m temperature (black) and the depth of the 12C isotherm (blue with error range) along the marked section that cuts across the jets. The shading in the bottom panel of (f) shows the vertical structure of the high-passed temperature along the same section.