Lagrangian sampling is best fitted for describing oceanic transport of scalar properties. Thus, forecast of tracks and intensities of hurricanes depends strongly on accurate measurements of surface temperature and sea level pressure. GLDs can provide data from the regions of hurricanes, which are difficult to obtain by other means. In view of the potential for mitigating the social and economic costs of climate shifts in the North Atlantic sector, it is important that we better understand North Atlantic climate variability with a view toward quantifying the predictable part of the variations and, ultimately, implementing skillful predictions. An observational leg presented below is a part of a coordinated measurement program intended to provide an adequate observational basis for testing hypotheses about the causes of climate variability in the tropical Atlantic and their impact on the North Atlantic sector in order to improve the formulation of the various coupled models.
Funding is in place for the first five years of a longer-term effort.
This will require a steady-state array of 142 drifters, which requires deploying 87 drifters per year. The data will be used, first, to evaluate the ability of numerical models to create realistic circulation fields, and, second, for assimilation into models that predict the evolution of the dipole. We expect that, over the course of this study, a coupled model of the ocean and atmosphere in the tropical Atlantic will emerge that is consistent with, and perhaps even relies significantly upon, these observations. Anticyclonic current rings in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. On the predictability of Lagrangian trajectories in the ocean.