Baroclinic eddies bordering the celtic sea in late summer

Abstract

Infra-red images of sea surface temperature indicate that shelf sea frontal regions around the British Isles are characterized by cyclonic eddies with typical wavelengths between 20 and 40 km and growth time scales in the order of a day. A similar analysis for the shelf-break region of the Celtic Sea based on the interpretation of structures observed in infra-red sattllite images and a survey at sea shows that this region is also characterized by eddies. These eddies are usually associated with a general lowering of sea surface temperature that occurs over the shelf-break region in late summer. In this paper, observed eddy scales are compared with estimates based on theory originally developed for large-scale (3000 km wavelength) atmospheric eddies and the role of eddies in cross-frontal exchange is examined in more detail.