Description: Approximately twice-monthly expendable bathythermograph (XBT) sections between Europe and Brazil, are used to characterize trends in the equatorial geostrophic surface currents orthogonal to the sections between September, 1980 and May, 1984. Using mean temperature-salinity relationships the upper layer temperature profiles are converted to density and used to compute 0/300 db dynamic height. Applying a second derivative method, at and near the equator, geostrophic surface currents are computed along each quasimeridional XBT section and time/space series of the equatorial currents are developed using spline interpolations in both time and space. Equatorial currents are mapped as time series of dynamic height and geostrophic current.

Description: Banned from taking naval vessels to foreign ports after WW1 Germany undertakes a comprehensive oceanographic expedition to the Atlantic Ocean to test many new measurement systems and to establish the long term circulation patterns of the Atlantic. Challenged by the proscription on German naval vessels from visiting foreign ports after WW1 a group of German oceanographers from the Institute for Marine Sciences in Berlin carried out a pioneering research expedition from 1925-27 to sample the hydrographic structure of the South Atlantic Ocean. Its captain Fritz Spiess was the primary driving force behind the expedition and the German navy supplied the survey ship Meteor. During this 2.5 year expedition the Meteor scientists tested a great many new measurement systems many of which later became routine oceanographic measurement systems. As a result of their observations the mean circulation pattern of the Atlantic was revealed that has remained valid to this day. People interested in the history of ocean exploration, the history of Earth science and German scientific activity between the World Wars will find this volume to be an intriguing read. Much of the book has been taken from the original cruise report written by Captain Fritz Spiess (1933). In addition, his role has been expanded to demonstrate his essential contribution to the creation of the expedition, its execution and the dissemination of its results upon completion. The present text comments on the captain's life before and after the expedition. In 1934 Fritz Spiess started his second carrier as President of the German Marine Observatory (Deutsche Seewarte) in Hamburg. A great number of so far unpublished documents demonstrate Spiess's ability to run his dignified agency in the turbulent times of Nazi Germany without becoming a Nazi himself. Readers will learn how this first ocean expedition, dedicated to the study of the physics a whole ocean basin, helped to provide the background for modern physical oceanography.

Description: As one of the few places in the ocean where winter cooling and mixing creates conditions where water from the surface can penetrate into the deep ocean the Labrador Sea is an area of interest to people studying climate change in the ocean. Persistent cloud cover over this area makes it impossible to use infrared satellite imagery to relate space/time changes in sea surface temperature (SST) to changes in surface currents and air-sea interaction. Using passive microwave SSTs from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E), we plot space/time changes in SST in the Labrador Sea and relate these changes to both simultaneous in situ measurements of temperature and numerical model SSTs. A direct comparison between the microwave SSTs, infrared SSTs, and in situ temperatures measured from profiling floats reveals that the microwave SSTs are a good representation of space/time changes in infrared SST and in ocean temperatures down to 10 m below the sea surface. Comparisons between the microwave SSTs and time series of temperatures at depths below 50 m reveal that winter/spring surface cooling makes the SST similar to temperatures at these deeper depths in the convection region of the central Labrador Sea. Detailed comparison of the annual cycle between the microwave SSTs and the model SST and 10 m currents reveals overall good agreement and some interesting differences.