Regional Variability of Thermohaline Finestructure.

摘要

Isopycnal variability of temperature is examined for the upper ocean on scales of several meters in the vertical and several hundred meters in the vertical and several hundred meters in the horizontal. A considerable number of rapidly sampled CTD profiles obtained in the Sargasso Sea (1979) and in the vicinity of the Faeroe Islands north of Scotland (1980) are described. Analyses of fine-scale variability within, adjacent to and away from a strong front are compared. A number of small, intense features are revealed which would likely have been missed by conventional sampling procedures. Analysis of strong interleaving in a frontal regime supports the hypothesis that salt-fingers drive thermohaline intrusions. (Author)