We thank Jenifer Clark, Grace Jensen, and Avijit Gangopadhyay for these analyses and images.
Jenifer Clark’s Gulf Stream analysis chart covers the area from 32N to 45N and 78W to 50W. The analyses are primarily derived from multiple sources of sea surface temperature (SST) data, including the NOAA polar orbiting satellite thermal infrared imagery. Additional data from altimeters (tracks and gridded fields) and in-situ observations are often used to support and infer these interpretive analyses, referred to as ‘Clark Charts’. See below for details on SST data.
Abbreviations for the different water mass areas are as follows: SST: Sea Surface Temperature; GS: Gulf Stream; WE: Warm Eddy; CE: Cold Eddy; SHW: Continental Shelf Water; SLW: Continental Slope Water; SAR: Sargasso Sea water. Solid lines represent ocean frontal mass boundaries, and arrows indicate the direction of flow, not the maximum current axis.
NOTE: For the NESMA experiment, we also provide NRT SST images, if available, to supplement the intermittent gaps in the analysis schedule. The descriptions of Prof. Avijit Gangopadhyay are provided under the analyses of Jenifer Clark.
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| Jenifer Clark’s analysis. | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. The Warm Core Ring seems to be ready to detach itself from the Stream to seek its independence! | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. The warm core ring at 65W is smaller and stable. Interestingly, there is a deep cyclonic trough forming (~68W) across the Newport-Bermuda line. | SST. |
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| NRT SST. | NRT SST. | NRT SST. | NRT SST. |
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| NRT SST. | NRT SST. | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. It seems the warm core ring is moving westward and the Gulf Stream is shifting to a more southern path allowing for more slope water to its north in the region of interest (near 63W). | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. |
| 20240722 | 20240724 | 20240729 | 20240802 |
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| Jenifer Clark’s analysis. Please note that the weak eddy in question mark on 7/22/24 chart is not visible at surface now. This transient eddy-like feature lasted for only 2-3 days. These types of transient eddies are not counted as a fully formed eddy (even if formed through the aneurysm process) in the eddy census. This is why a threshold of 7 days lifespan has been used to consider an eddy to be part of any further statistical analysis with these charts (Silver et al. 2022, 2023 etc.). | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. There is an ongoing interaction of the Gulf Stream with the warm core ring near 65W, which might have some future impact on the Stream's configuration over the NESMA region. | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. A pinching off of a cyclonic cold eddy is taking shape at around 67W, 36N. | Jenifer Clark’s analysis. A very curious structure on the SST near the NESMA region. |
The Gulf Stream (GS) flows from east of Florida to North Carolina and then eastward. Warm Eddies (WE) are usually found north of the stream and circulate clockwise, while Cold Eddies (CE) are normally found south of the stream and circulate counterclockwise. SHW refers to water over the continental shelf, and SLW refers to water over the continental slope. The boundary between SHW and SLW is marked by a continuous shelf-slope separation line, which changes slowly over time and space. Sea surface temperatures are often marked in Fahrenheit within the chart, and the color bar is provided in Celsius to facilitate interpretation using both units.
Daily observations of sea surface temperature (SST) in the northwest Atlantic are accessible through the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) CoastWatch and the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Earthdata portals. Each portal offers a variety of open access options for SST observations.
NASA’s Earthdata portal provides access to daily (24-hour latency) global observations from the Aqua and Terra satellites, which carry the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, which has the Visible Infrared Imaging spectroRadiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrumentation. MODIS and VIIRS can capture 4 km resolution during the night (11um or 4um) or day (11um).
Through NOAA CoastWatch, SST imagery generated using the Advanced Clear-Sky Processor for Ocean (ACSPO) algorithm is available. This suite of multi-sensor gridded super-collated products is available in near-real time (NRT) with global night and day observations at 2 km resolution. These images are generated using various combinations of observations from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Meteorological Operational (MetOp) satellites A/B/C, NOAA’s N20 and N21 satellites, and the Suomi NPP satellite. Combining observations from these platforms provides imagery from two types of instrumentation: VIIRS (N20, N21, and NPP) and Advanced Very High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) (MetOp platforms). There is an AM product from the AVHRR onboard MetOp-B and C, and a PM product from VIIRS on NPP, N20, and N21. The daily product combines all four AM/PM day/night SSTs. The data is downloaded as NetCDF files, and then processed using NASA’s SeaDAS software for analysis.
Data Sources: