A summary for North Atlantic circulation is proposed to replace the circulation scheme hypothesized by Worthington in 1976. Divergences from the previous model are in thermohaline circulation, cross-equatorical transport and Florida Current sources, flow in the eastern Atlantic, circulation in the Newfoundland Basin, slope water currents, and flow pattern near the Bahamas. The circulation patterns presented here are consistent with the majority of of published accounts of flow components. 77 refs., 14 figs., 3 tabs.

On the North Atlantic Circulation

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World ocean atlas 2013. Volume 1, Temperature

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World ocean atlas 2001. Volume 2, Salinity

A new four-dimensional ocean interpolation system based on locally weighted least squares fitting is presented. A loess filter is used to interpolate irregularly spaced data onto a uniform grid. This involves projecting the data onto quadratic functions of latitude and longitude while simultaneously fitting annual and semiannual harmonics by weighted least squares. The smoothness scale of the mapping method adapts to match the data density, thus producing gridded estimates with maximum resolution. The filter has a vertical dimension, such that the data on adjacent levels are included in the computation. This greatly reduces the effects of discontinuities in data distributions between adjacent levels, since the estimates at each level are no longer independent. The loess scheme has been further modified so that the weighting of data points is adjusted to allow for the influence of both bathymetry and land barriers. This allows the bathymetry to influence the mapped fields in a natural way, reduces leakage of structure between deep and shallow regions and produces far more realistic coastal gradients. The flexibility of the loess approach has allowed further adjustments to compensate for irregularities in spatial and temporal sampling. The mapping is shown to be statistically consistent with an objective measure of the a priori noise of the dataset. Departures of the mapped fields from independent surface temperature climatologies and mean vertical sections derived from withheld expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data are within error limits. The method is applied to the major seas around Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia (508S‐108N, 1008E;‐1808) to form a high-resolution seasonal climatology of temperature, salinity, oxygen, nitrate, phosphate, and silicate, referred to as the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Atlas of Regional Seas (CARS). Stringent quality control procedures have been applied to a comprehensive dataset assembled from all known sources. The resulting maps successfully resolve both the large-scale structure and narrow coastal features and illustrate how the bathymetry influences the property distributions.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0426(2002)019%3C1357%3AOIBFDW%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Ocean Interpolation by Four-Dimensional Weighted Least Squares—Application to the Waters around Australasia

The GIN Sea—A synthesis of its physical oceanography and literature review 1972–1985

During April–June 1972 three ships conducted a survey of the region between the Grand Banks and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, including a grid of hydrographic stations, and two long lines of near-bottom current-meter moorings across the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current, respectively. The purpose was to map the property distributions and current field where the Gulf Stream branches, in greater detail and with less ambiguity than hitherto; that material is described here. Worthington's hypothesis that the primary current system there is not a branching Gulf Stream but portions of two separate (and nongeostrophic) gyres is criticized at length in terms of the observed property distributions; it is shown that, given a moderate degree of lateral mixing, they are consistent with the branching, geostrophic flow field, and that there is no need to abandon established physics in order to rationalize them. The deep motions recorded by the current meters on the North Atlantic Current line were roughly sugge...

Robert F. Reiniger

Papers

Current System South and East of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland

A method of interpolation with application to oceanographic data

The Gulf Stream at 49°30′W