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Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Temperature and salinity variability in thermohaline staircase layers

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

A moored profiler record from the western tropical North Atlantic provides the first continuous time series of temperature, salinity and velocity profiles in a thermohaline staircase. Variations in the intensity of layering and the evolution of layer properties are well documented during the 4.3 month record. Such staircases are the result of strong salt fingering at the interfaces between the mixed layers, and these data provide unique insights into the dynamics of salt fingers. In particular, a striking linear correlation between the temperature and salinity of the layers may be interpreted as resulting from vertical salt finger flux divergences. Data from this record allow new interpretations of previous work on this topic by McDougall (1991).

Degree

thesis:*
Grantor dc:publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Year dc:date.issued
2005

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Stuebe, David Allen

Subjects

dc:subject × 2

Rights

Language dc:language.iso
en_US

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org:1912/1639

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Base URL
darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/server/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-27
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Stuebe, David Allen. Temperature and salinity variability in thermohaline staircase layers. Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2005. https://hdl.handle.net/1912/1639