Historical position of the North Atlantic Current

Abstract

The path of the North Atlantic Current (NAC) within the Newfoundland Basin is determined from the historical hydrographic database (1910–1988). Horizontal probability distributions for dynamical and property front locations on specific volume anomaly surfaces are derived from an analysis of all available hydrographic stations in the basin. These probability distributions indicate where the fronts were most likely to have been observed in the past; they are observed to exhibit a pattern of stationary meanders, with troughs located over the southeast Newfoundland Rise, over the Newfoundland Seamounts, and to the east of the Flemish Cap. The width of the NAC's envelope varies from <150 km near the Mann Eddy (42°N, 44°W) to >300 km over the southeast Newfoundland Rise. Temporal subsamples of the historical data indicate that the path and meander patterns are persistent features for all seasons and for the four decades between 1950 and 1990.