College
College of Arts & Sciences
Mentor Information
Dr. Yao Fu
Description
The Labrador Current is an important component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and is the primary pathway for deep water transport from the sub polar North Atlantic southward. Understanding the strength of the Labrador Current and its variability can help to better estimate the potential decline of this crucial current system. A previous study (Meyer & Chambers, 2025) used satellite gravity measurements from the GRACE and GRACE Follow-on missions (GRACE/ FO) to approximate Labrador Current variability and demonstrated reasonable monthly values with transport calculated at a mooring array at 53°N. This study adds to that previous study by utilizing a longer record of Labrador Current transport from mooring data and finding areas of maximum correlation between GRACE/FO observations of bottom pressure and the mooring transport. The previous study used areas based on a maximum correlation analysis with model data. We find that using the satellite/mooring cross-correlation correlation lot leads to slightly better accuracy in the satellite transport estimate than found using the model correlations as in Meyer & Chambers (2025). Using an extended mooring dataset for comparison does allow for an improved accuracy estimate of the satellite transport estimate than found by Meyer and Chambers (2025), who only used data after 2018.
Comparing Satellite Gravity Estimates of the Labrador Current to Mooring Observations
The Labrador Current is an important component of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and is the primary pathway for deep water transport from the sub polar North Atlantic southward. Understanding the strength of the Labrador Current and its variability can help to better estimate the potential decline of this crucial current system. A previous study (Meyer & Chambers, 2025) used satellite gravity measurements from the GRACE and GRACE Follow-on missions (GRACE/ FO) to approximate Labrador Current variability and demonstrated reasonable monthly values with transport calculated at a mooring array at 53°N. This study adds to that previous study by utilizing a longer record of Labrador Current transport from mooring data and finding areas of maximum correlation between GRACE/FO observations of bottom pressure and the mooring transport. The previous study used areas based on a maximum correlation analysis with model data. We find that using the satellite/mooring cross-correlation correlation lot leads to slightly better accuracy in the satellite transport estimate than found using the model correlations as in Meyer & Chambers (2025). Using an extended mooring dataset for comparison does allow for an improved accuracy estimate of the satellite transport estimate than found by Meyer and Chambers (2025), who only used data after 2018.
