Glider observations of thermohaline staircases in the  tropical North Atlantic using an automated classifier

Rollo, Callum; Heywood, Karen J.; Hall, Rob A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-11-359-2022

Articles | Volume 11, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-11-359-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-11-359-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 2

Research article

|

25 Oct 2022

Research article |

| 25 Oct 2022

Glider observations of thermohaline staircases in the tropical North Atlantic using an automated classifier

Callum Rollo, Karen J. Heywood, and Rob A. Hall

Data sets

Physical and biogeochemical data from three Seagliders on a combination transect and virtual mooring deployment, NE of Barbados January - February 2020. Callum Rollo https://doi.org/10.5285/C596CDD7-C709-461A-E053-6C86ABC0C127

Model code and software

Thermohaline staircase classifier Callum Rollo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5541659

Short summary

Using an underwater buoyancy-powered autonomous glider, we collected profiles of temperature and salinity from the ocean north-east of Barbados. Most of the temperature and salinity profiles contained staircase-like structures of alternating constant values and large gradients. We wrote an algorithm to identify these staircases. We hypothesise that these staircases are prevented from forming where background gradients in temperature and salinity are too great.