Abstract: Seasonality of the Surface Circulation in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Insights from Two Large-Scale Drifter Deployments (2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting)

Seasonality of the Surface Circulation in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Insights from Two Large-Scale Drifter Deployments

Helga Huntley¹, A. D. Kirwan Jr², Henry Chang² and Carthe Consortium³, (1)University of Delaware, Newark, United States, (2)University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States, (3)University of Miami, RSMAS, Miami, FL, United States

Abstract:

In the summer of 2012, about 300 surface drifters were released in and near the DeSoto Canyon in the Northern Gulf of Mexico as part of GLAD (the Grand Lagrangian Deployment) to observe the circulation and dispersion patterns at an unprecedented range of scales, from 100 m to 10 km. This wealth of data demonstrated the importance of submesoscale features in determining the local transport properties. A follow-on experiment (LASER, the LAgrangian Submesoscale ExpeRiment) in January/February 2016 will add a winter-time counterpart, with roughly 1000 surface drifters to be deployed alongside almost 50 deeper drifters. This talk will discuss some early results from a seasonal analysis of the two experiments.

Back to: Lagrangian Perspectives on Ocean Circulation and Mixing II