Remote sensing of diople rings

• Published in: IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 1394 - 1399
• Main Authors: Hooker, Stanford B, Mied, Richard P, Brown, James W, Kirwan, AD Jr
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.01.1997
• ISSN: 0196-2892

Historical satellite-derived sea surface temperature (SST) data are reanalyzed with a zebra color palette and a thermal separatrix method. The new results from this reanalysis are as follows: a) Thirteen observational sequences of six rings from the Gulf Stream and the Brazil Current, which have historically been interpreted as solitary vortices or monopoles are shown to have a dipolar character; b) some of these dipole rings have been observed in the open ocean, thereby eliminating the possibility that they are sustained by topographic interactions with the continental slope; c) whether interacting with other features or evolving as isolated circulations, dipoles are seen to rotate within a relatively narrow range of approximately 4-8 degrees day super(-) super(1) (interacting) and 10-15 degrees day super(-) super(1) (isolated); and d) feature tracking delineates energetic fluid in both vortices and eliminates the possibility of interpreting dipole rings as transient features produced by active monopoles and patches of entrained fluid.