Subsurface temperature and its relation to dynamic height at 130° E across the North Equatorial Current

Abstract

Temperature profiles down to 1500 m (CTD) collected by Academia Sinica from 1986 to 1990 are used and discussed in relation to the dynamic heights at 130° E across the North Equatorial Current (NEC). An extremely high correlation between subsurface (say at 400 m depth) temperature and dynamic height relative to 1500 db is found, and the corresponding regression relationships suggest a method to estimate geostrophic circulation from subsurface temperature alone. These suggest that the conclusions from extensive studies on this topic in Australian waters also apply to the NEC region, at least at 130°E, thus making the subsurface thermal structure an excellent indicator of the variation of the NEC.