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Creating a synoptic scale estimate of the slope conditions
GDEM near GOM
Slope GDEM near GOM
Slope GDEM OA

Although the continental slope has its own interesting structures, including Gulf Stream rings and meanders, the focus of this work is the Gulf of Maine. Therefore, a climatological estimate is sufficient. The climatology chosen was the ¼° GDEM.

Since the climatology was to be used as the slope input to the shelf/slope front feature model, the data values had to be kept distinct from the data values used for the shelf analysis. Therefore the following restriction was imposed on the GDEM climatology:

The restricted profiles were then analyzed using the HOPS objective analysis package. This package uses a 2-stage analysis with an analytic correlation function. The correlation parameters for the first stage (large scale) analysis were 360km decay, 600km zero crossing and 10000day temporal decay. For the second stage (synoptic scale): 90km decay, 225km zero crossing and 1day temporal decay. A dynamic height is computed from the mapped T and S using a level of no motion of 2000m.