FY 1988

Beaufort Sea mesoscale circulation study—Preliminary results

Aagaard, K., C.H. Pease, and S.A. Salo

NOAA Tech. Memo. ERL PMEL-82, NTIS: PB89-121693, 171 pp (1988)

The Beaufort Sea Mesoscale Circulation Study was initiated in the autumn of 1986 and included measurements of currents, winds and ice velocities, as well as observations of state variables and nutrient distributions in the ocean and state variables in the polar atmosphere, principally between Barrow and Demarcation Point along the American Beaufort Sea shelf. This report describes the preliminary results from observations made during the first year of the project, including current velocity results from meters recovered through the ice in April 1987, hydrographic and nutrient sections completed in October 1986 and April 1987, wind velocity, air pressure and temperature records recovered continuously through the end of 1987, ARGOS buoy tracks through 1987, and a representative sample of analyzed weather maps during the first year. Data collection continued through April 1988. The total data set is extraordinary in the temporal and spatial extent of its synoptic coverage, and in the variety of its constituent measurements. The data set is also extremely large, and its full reduction and analysis will provide an exceptional opportunity for improving our understanding of the shelf circulation and its forcing, as well as conditions important to the marine ecology of the area.