Data use cases

Data extraction | Seasonal variations

2.1.1 Western boundary currents: The Gulf Stream and its seasonal variations Satellite altimetry's contribution to ocean circulation studies.

Does the Gulf Stream vary with the seasons? Or with the years? A few diagrams illustrate a first approach.

The Gulf Stream, season by season

Here we are considering two seasons: autumn (October-November) and Spring (April-May). For each one we:

• compute the temporal average of the absolute dynamic topography all along a cross-section in longitude (70°W),
• plot diagrams showing how these averaged dynamic heights vary with latitude.

Seen in this way, the Gulf Stream appears at approximately 37°N, and seems further north in October (black curves) than in April (red curves), as well as appearing more intense. These differences could mirror a seasonal or inter-annual signal.

fig 1: 2001-2002	fig 2: 2002-2003
fig 3: 2003-2004	fig 4: 2004-2005