Publication Date:
2016-10-28
Description:
Our study makes use of a fortuitous oceanographic data set collected around the remote sub-Antarctic island of Bouvetøya by a conductivity–temperature–depth recorder (CTD) integrated with a satellite-relayed data logger deployed on an adult female southern elephant seal ( Mirounga leonina ) to describe the seasonal evolution of the western shelf waters. The instrumented seal remained in waters over the shelf for 259 days, collecting an average of 2.6 (±0.06) CTD profiles per day, providing hydrographic data encompassing the late austral summer and the entire winter. These data document the thermal stratification of the upper water layer due to summer surface heating of the previous year’s Antarctic Surface Water, giving way to a cold subsurface layer at about 100 m as the austral winter progressed, with a concomitant increase in salinity of the upper layer. Upper Circumpolar Deep Water was detected at a depth of approximately 200 m along the western shelf of Bouvetøya throughout the year. These oceanographic data represent the only seasonal time series for this region and the second such animal–instrument oceanographic time series in the sub-Antarctic domain of the Southern Ocean. Keywords: Biotelemetry; diving; elephant seal; oceanography; marine predators; CTD-SRDL. (Published: 27 October 2016) To access the supplementary material for this article, please see supplementary files in the column to the right (under Article Tools). Citation: Polar Research 2016, 35 , 28278, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/polar.v35.28278
Print ISSN:
0800-0395
Electronic ISSN:
1751-8369
Topics:
Geography
,
Geosciences
