TY - JOUR T1 - Evidence of abyssal eddies in the Brazil Basin - art. no. 3027 A1 - Weatherly,G A1 - Arhan,Michel A1 - Mercier,Herle A1 - Smethie,W AD - Florida State Univ, Dept Oceanog, Tallahassee, FL 32306 USA. AD - IFREMER, Ctr Brest, UBO,CNRS, Lab Phys Oceans, F-29280 Plouzane, France. AD - Lamont Doherty Earth Observ, Palisades, NY 10964 USA. AD - UR - https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00000/10051/ DO - 10.1029/2000JC000648 KW - eddies KW - Deep Western Boundary Current KW - eddy merging N2 - [1] We report evidence of two deep cyclonic and two deep anticyclonic submesoscale eddies from World Oceanographic Circulation Experiment hydrographic casts made in the Brazil Basin. We infer that three of these were likely formed in or near the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC) of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), and thus had traveled eastward after formation. These eddies appear to be a new way for transporting NADW away from the DWBC to the ocean interior. One of the apparent cyclonic eddies appeared to be laterally in contact with one of the anticyclonic eddies. About 10 days later an attempt was made to resample the apparent eddies that had been in contact. These observations, although limited, are interpreted to indicate that they survived the encounter, that the cyclonic eddy had now moved to be beneath the anticyclonic one with each being somewhat thinner, and that they produced a new anticyclonic eddy by partially merging. Deep float observations [Hogg and Owens, 1999] partially support the second inference. Y1 - 2002/04 PB - Amer Geophysical Union JF - Journal Of Geophysical Research Oceans SN - 0148-0227 VL - 107 IS - C4 ID - 10051 ER -