The gulf stream off the east coast of the United States

Abstract

Current and temperature data from a one-year-long instrument deployment in the region just northeast of Cape Hatteras have shown the oceanic variability to be, intense and quite complex. Changes in the position of the Gulf Stream’s path were observed to occur following cold core Gulf Stream passages through the area. The time between these changes was a few months. The Gulf Stream jet itself was seen to meander in a manner previously observed, as long as it was not undergoing a strong ring/stream interaction. Several isolated vortices progressed through the array, with the majority of them being in the submesoscale coherent vortex class. Two mid-depth, anticyclonic warm eddies progressed through the array. It is likely the two events were caused by two different transits of the same eddy. The deep waters below the main thermocline oscillated as topographic Rossby waves progressed through the array area.