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About this collection

Extent

1 digital object.

Cite This Work

Lankhorst, Matthias (2025). North Atlantic Current Time Series from Satellite and Float Observations. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J00Z747J

Description

The North Atlantic Current (NAC) is the continuation of the Gulf Stream on its path towards Europe. Here, a time series of its strength is reported that is calculated from two observational datasets: One is the sea surface height from satellite altimetry, the other consists of watercolumn temperature and salinity profiles from Argo floats. The NAC flow is given as the total volume transport of water in a depth layer defined by pressure ranges of 0 - 1000 dbar, across a section that spans from a site in the Central Irminger Sea (CIS) to another in the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) area. Uncertainty estimates of the flow are included, as is a proxy time series of longer duration that is estimated from satellite data alone. The methodology is described in a publication by Lankhorst and Send (Progress in Oceanography, 2020); the data here represent an updated version of what is shown in figure 6a of this publication.

Date Collected

• 1993-01-01 to 2025-07-02

Date Issued

• 2025

Author

• Lankhorst, Matthias

Funding

Earlier versions of this dataset were created with support from the European Commission through awards EVK2-CT-2000-00087 and EVR1-CT-2001-40014 (projects 'GYROSCOPE' and 'ANIMATE').

Geographics

• Irminger Sea
• North Atlantic Current
• Porcupine Abyssal Plain

Topics

• Altimetry
• Argo
• Domain: Earth sciences
• Geostrophic current
• Oceanography

Format

View formats within this collection

• data

Language

• English

Identifier

Identifier: Matthias Lankhorst: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4166-4044

Related Resources

Primary associated publication

• Matthias Lankhorst and Uwe Send: Uncertainty of North Atlantic Current observations from altimetry, floats, moorings, and XBT. Progress in Oceanography, 187, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pocean.2020.102402

Collection image

• Image credit: Matthias Lankhorst. "Map with schematic of North Atlantic Current (NAC) flow between the CIS and PAP sites (Central Irminger Sea and Porcupine Abyssal Plain, resp.)."