GULF-STREAM MEANDERS OFF NORTH-CAROLINA DURING WINTER AND SUMMER 1979
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abstract
Meanders produced most of the subtidal variability in the Gulf Stream off North Carolina during 1979. Recording instruments were moored in the lower half of the water column over the 200-m and 400-m isobaths for two periods of 4 months, one in the late winter and one in the late summer. In both seasons, the middepth current speed typically fluctuated between minus 50 cm s** minus **1 and plus 100 cm s** minus **1 about a 30 cm s** minus **1 downstream mean. The velocity, temperature, and salinity fluctuations had a prominent weekly time scale in the winter, caused by the meandering stream. In the summer the weekly time scale was less prominent within a generally energetic 3- to 10-day period band. In both seasons, the meandering currents were nearly in phase vertically, and the meanders propagated downstream at approximationly 40 km d** minus **1. Shallow, in-shore filaments of warm water, separated from the main stream by bands of cooler surface water, are often extruded from the Gulf Stream front during the shoreward-most phase (crest) of meanders.
