Investigation of Ocean Dynamics using Argo Float Data

Abstract

Ocean mesoscale eddies are an essential part of the climate system. They are responsible for increasing the primary productivity of the regions they exist in and drive massive amounts of momentum, salinity and nutrient transport. Eddies exist everywhere in the ocean but are more common near energetic currents like the Kuroshio Current and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Due to their significant impacts and ubiquity, they are important to study. Argo floats are instruments that measure the temperature values at a depth of 1000 dbar in the ocean before rising up while measuring the temperature and salinity profiles of the ocean. The data they collect at a depth of 1000 dbar is called park phase data. The park phase data has not been used extensively as it is only available for some of the Argo floats. However, we used Argo park phase data and the Sea Level Anomaly (SLA) from satellite data along the track of the float to detect eddies. We considered persistent periods of anti-correlation between these curves a sign of eddy activity. We then used the first baroclinic mode to predict the displacement at 1000 dbar depth to compare with the observational displacement time series we get from Argo floats. We find a good correlation between the observational Argo displacement time series and the SLA time series and between the observational displacement and the displacement predicted by the first baroclinic mode in some cases. This implies that the Argo park phase data can be used to detect eddies by correlating with the SLA and that it can be used to look at the vertical structure of eddies in the ocean.