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| Titel |
North Atlantic Current variability as observed by two decades of XBT measurements |
| VerfasserIn |
Sabine Hüttl-Kabus, Birgit Klein |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250037782
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| Zusammenfassung |
| In the framework of the German contribution to the Ship-of-Opportunity program (SOOP)
temperature measurements in the North Atlantic have been carried out since 1988. The
timeseries of XBT measurements along the AX-03 line (English channel to Grand Banks,
continuing to Halifax or New York) is without major interruptions and will be used to
investigate interannual to decadal temperature changes in the highly variable transition region
between the subtropical and subpolar gyre.
Along the western part of the section changes of the separation latitude of the North Atlantic
Current (NAC) are observed, showing a tendency for warmer waters to penetrate farther north
between 1999-2006 compared to the period 1988-1998. However, interannual variability is on
the same order of magnitude and masks the signal in some years. Based on XBT
data only it is impossible to distinguish if the 1999-2006 warming is a trend or
decadal variability. The variability in the eastern basin reveals a qualitative similar
behavior, although with smaller variability amplitudes. Combining both findings the
observations indicate a basinwide northward shift of the NAC and the subtropical gyre
until 2006. Heat content changes at the western boundary amount to about 5*109
J/m2, along the eastern boundary to about 2*109 J/m2. Applying XBT fall rate
corrections to the original data does not reveal a significant change of the variability
behavior. |
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