OLR (1985) 32 (12) A. Physical Oceanography 995

A50. General hydrography (distribution of common oceanic properties)

85:6921 Leach, H., P.J. Minnett and J.D. Woods, 1985. The

GATE Lagrangian Batfish experiment [tropical Atlantic]. Deep-Sea Res., 32(5A):575-597.

Thirteen box-surveys were carried out as part of the GATE experiment with a CTD mounted on a Batfish towed body. By means of isopycnic analysis it has been possible to show that thermohaline and dynamic structures were present whose scales were comparable with those of mesoscale fronts. Inst. fur Meeresk., Univ. Kiel, Dusternbrooker Weg 20, D-2300 Kiel, FRG.

85:6922 Weisberg, R.H., 1985. Equatorial Atlantic velocity

and temperature observations: February-Novem- ber 1981. J. phys. Oceanogr., 15(5):533-543.

Distinct seasonal variations were observed in the zonal momentum and temperature on the Equator of both the surface South Equatorial Current and the subsurface Equatorial Undercurrent. After initially intensifying during boreal spring the SEC halted abruptly in early summer. At the observational depth of 100 m both speed and temperature increased during early summer with eastward pro- gression and then decreased in fall. The 2-3 week oscillations of the meridional velocity component appeared most energetically during the summer and fall seasons; oscillations generally tended to be anisotropic and inhomogeneous. Vertical advection of zonal momentum was important. Dept. of Mar. Sci., Univ. of So. Florida, St. Petersburg, FL, USA.

gyres. Retroflection of part of the model Agulhas Current is largely due to the net accumulation of t-generated anticyclonic relative vorticity. Distance between the latitude of zero wind stress curl and the southern tip of the African peninsula is one of the primary factors that determine the degree of isola- tion of the anticyclonic gyres east and west of the continent. The associated fluctuating inflows of warm Agulhas water into the South Atlantic may have an important impact on the climatic variability over that region. Rijkswaterstaat Deltaservice, Van Alkemadelaan 400, 2597 AT The Hague, Nether- lands.

85:6924 Keffer, Thomas, 1985. The ventilation of the world's

oceans: maps of the potential vortieity field. J. phys. Oceanogr., 15(5):509-523.

The character of a layer within the thermocline of a subtropical gyre will vary greatly depending on the extent to which the layer is isolated from surface boundary conditions and forcing. Fluid particles recirculating within 'ventilated' layers have their potential vorticity and other properties reset with virtually every circuit round the gyre when they pass through the outcrop zone. By contrast, particles within 'unventilated' or 'dynamically isolated' layers share their properties with neighboring particles and approach a common, 'homogenized' state. The North Atlantic thermocline is shown to be highly anomalous. The other oceans show a much greater tendency toward homogenization, even at great depth, suggesting that their dynamical isolation is relatively complete. Dept. of Phys. Oceanogr., WHOI, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA.

AS0. Circulation

85:6923 de Ruijter, W.P.M. and D.B. Boudra, 1985. The

wind-driven circulation in the South Atlantic- Indian Ocean. I. Numerical experiments in a one-layer model. Deep-Sea Res., 32(5A):557- 574.

In the least nonlinear experiment virtually the full transport of the model Agulhas Current flows westward around South Africa into the South Atlantic Ocean. With increasing Rossby number the anticyclonic circulations in the subtropical Atlantic and Indian oceans become more and more isolated from each other. There is a dramatic increase in the basin-wide eddy kinetic energy level and in the associated mixing of vorticity and momentum between the cyclonic and anticyclonic wind-driven

85:6925 White, W.B., S.E. Pazan and Bochang Li, 1985.

Processes of short-term climatic variability in the baroclinic structure of the interior western trop- ical North Pacific. J. phys. Oceanogr., 15(4):386- 402.

Two-layer, wind-driven, baroclinic long-wave sim- ulations of dynamic heights in the interior western tropical North Pacific for 1966-74 are compared with observations using empirical orthogonal func- tion analyses of the model results and observations. It is found that most of the variance is due to two E1 Nifio-Southern Oscillation events. The model ex- plains 48% of the observed variance. The dynamics of the short-term climatic variability are dominated by steady equilibrium processes. Scripps Inst. of Oceanogr., La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. (wbo)