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On the boundary flow off Brazil at 5–10°S and its connection to the interior tropical Atlantic
Author(s) -
Schott Friedrich A.,
Brandt Peter,
Hamann Meike,
Fischer Jürgen,
Stramma Lothar
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2002gl014786
Subject(s) - north atlantic deep water , geology , thermohaline circulation , tropical atlantic , oceanography , equator , thermocline , boundary current , climatology , subtropics , ocean current , latitude , sea surface temperature , geodesy , fishery , biology
Within the context of the German CLIVAR program, an observational program in the western tropical Atlantic with shipboard sections, profiling floats and a moored array aims at studying the role of the shallow thermohaline subtropical cell (STC) in tropical‐subtropical interactions and the cold water transports underneath. From 6 repeated shipboard profiling sections off Brazil near 5°S a northward warm water transport above 1100 m of 25.0 ± 4.4 Sv is determined, of which 13.4 ± 2.7 Sv occur in the thermocline layer supplying the Equatorial Undercurrent. Trajectories of 15 profiling floats released near the western boundary are presented that drift at shallow levels (200 m and 400 m) and delineate the different STC branches. For the southward flow of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) a section‐mean transport of −31.7 ± 9.2 Sv was determined at 5°S. However, different from the steady NADW flow observed earlier along the topography north of the equator, the NADW currents at 5–10°S are much more variable with long periods of northward counterflow along the topography.