The mean and variability of ocean circulation past northern New Zealand: Determining the representativeness of hydrographic climatologies

Eastward flow in the Tasman Sea, from the separated East Australia Current, reattaches to the shelf break near North Cape, New Zealand, and then continues alongshore to the southeast as the East Auckland Current. A series of three permanent warm core eddies occurs along the offshore side. The mean transport of the East Auckland Current is about 9 Sv, with an additional 10 Sv or more of circulation in the eddies. An extensive hydrographic data set, archived broad scale expendable bathythermograph (XBT) data, two repeating high-resolution XBT transects, neutrally buoyant float trajectories, and TOPEX altimetric data are used to estimate the temperature and absolute flow fields and to characterize variability. The aim is to examine the usefulness of time series information and absolute velocity measurements in the interpretation of hydrographic Snapshots and climatologies, as well as to describe a region having intrinsic oceanographic interest and complexity. Issues of representativeness of the hydrographic data, of the magnitude and scales of the underlying variability, of the existence of permanent fine-scale features, and of the appropriateness of deep reference levels are addressed directly. The relatively well sampled hydrographic climatology is shown to contain the equivalent of as many as 10 independent realizations. Temperature errors, relative to the true mean, are typically a few tenths of a degree. Significant seasonal bias is identified in the surface layer, and interannual bias is seen in the position of an eddy near North Caps. The dynamic height field at 1000 dbar relative to 2000 dbar is similar to estimates based on float trajectories and the assumption of geostrophic dynamics. This study underlines the value of time series data in the interpretation of a hydrographic climatology, in quantifying the errors in the estimated mean field as well as determining the magnitude and nature of variability. It also highlights the fact that the mean circulation of the oceans contains significant mesoscale structure, unnoticed in coarsely smoothed climatologies.