Deep water outflow from the Weddell Sea into the Scotia Sea

(SW Atlantic)

Inter-annual variability from one year of current meter data

Motivation

Significant freshening at the base of the ACC

Salinity at 3000 mSouthern Ocean Database (Whitworth and Orsi, 2005)

E-SASSI project SASSI: Synoptic Antarctic Shelf-Slope Interactions study (IPY)

2008 ESASSI cruise (Spain)

2009 mooring data(Spain and US projects)

Jan 2008 ESASSI cruise New potential locations of ACC ventilation

Outflow of vWG into the Scotia Sea associated to the Antarctic Slope Front (ASF)

ASF

ASF

Weddell Pycnoclin

e

Scotia Pycnocline

Mooring design

Deployment: Feb 2009Recovery: Feb 2010

New mooring, with sediment trapDeployment: Feb 2013Recovery: Feb 2014

2009 mooring data

2009 mooring data

AVISO (SSH)

ERA-Interim (wind stress curl)

Autumn

Spring

ERA-Interim (wind stress curl)

Early winter

ERA-Interim (wind stress curl)

Winter

ERA-Interim (wind stress curl)

AMSRE

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