Satellite studies of ocean fronts and eddies for deepwater development in the Norwegian sea

摘要

The background for this study is the requirements from the oil industry to obtain more knowledge about currents and eddies for the deepwater exploration west of Mid-Norway. In this study more than 70 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) scenes from the ERS-2 satellite, each covering l00 by 100 km, were investigated for low wind conditions allowing observation of current patterns and fronts. Location, scale and rotation of eddies was determined from the SAR images. Also altimeter data from ERS and TOPEX POSEIDON satellites were analyzed in order to estimate geostrophic currents in the study area. The results showed that satellite SAR and altimeter data can play an important role to obtain synoptic information about current regimes over larger areas, which is complementary to standard buoy measurements at fixed locations and model simulations.