The Gulf Stream's path and time-averaged velocity structure and transport at 68.5°W and 70.3°W

Full-ocean-depth observations of horizontal velocity, temperature and salinity along 68.5 degrees W chiefly over the period October 2010-May 2014 are analyzed in conjunction with repeated shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (SADCP) upper-ocean velocity sections occupied upstream at 70.3 degrees W and regional satellite-altimeter-based sea surface height (SSH) data to construct estimates of the time-averaged Gulf Stream velocity, property structures and transport. A stream-coordinate mean section is created from two moorings near 68.5 degrees W where data are binned relative to distance from the Gulf Stream axis, rotated into along- and across-stream coordinates, and then averaged. Transport in the upper 600 m inferred from the moorings excluding times of large Stream axis curvature and Gulf Stream ring influences is 59.9 Sv (with 95% confidence bounds between 58.6 and 61.6 Sv). This is in good agreement with a mean constructed from the SADCP sections at 70.3 degrees W. Relative to the mean field at 70.3 degrees W, the velocity core of the time-averaged Stream at 68.5 degrees W appears broader with weaker maximum speed, consistent with a companion analysis of the altimetric SSH data. The time-averaged full-ocean-depth transport inferred from the moorings is 102.1 Sv (with 95% confidence bounds between 99.1 and 106.3 Sv), which is stronger than the mean inferred from an ensemble of 10 full-depth lowered acoustic Doppler current profiler (LADCP) sections collected along the moored array. The 2010-2014 time-averaged Gulf Stream inferred from the moored observations is weaker by about 10% than the time-averaged full-ocean-depth transport reported for the late 1980s at the same location using similar procedures, with much of this difference arising from flows at depths greater than 1000 m. Satellite altimetry provides spatial and temporal context for these results and suggests that there are small-scale recirculation cells flanking the separated Gulf Stream west of the New England Seamount Chain. Gulf Stream transport, which includes throughput and recirculating components, appears to be more sensitive to changes in these recirculations at 68.5 degrees W compared to 70.3 degrees W.