The international DOVETAIL program

Abstract

Abstract The “Deep Ocean Ventilation Through Antarctic Intermediate Layers” (DOVETAIL) program is an international field and modeling study of the dense deep and bottom waters of the northwestern Weddell Sea. A primary program goal has been to estimate the volume transport and pathways of these waters, long considered to be a major source of Antarctic Bottom Water, as they escape from the Weddell Sea over and through the South Scotia Ridge into the Scotia Sea. Corollary goals are to assess modification of the stratification during passage through the narrow, steep-sided, and irregular channels that transect the Ridge. The program has evolved, since its start in 1997 as a primarily process-oriented project, into a multiyear observational study of the northwestern Weddell Sea-southern Scotia Sea including the Weddell–Scotia Confluence region. An additional program goal therefore has become the estimation of interannual variability in the physical system. This volume contains a collection of papers that present recent field and model-derived results from the DOVETAIL program.