Atlantic Ocean
AX08
This transect crosses the tropical Atlantic in a NW-SE direction between North America and South Africa. Historical data along AX08 and other historical temperature observations in the tropics exhibit decadal and multi-decadal signals associated with the zonal current systems present in the region. Temperature profiles obtained from this transect since 2000 help to monitor the main zonal currents, countercurrents, and undercurrents and to investigate their spatial and temporal variability. A recent study that uses AX08 data concludes that the transport variability of the NECC and NEUC currents are linked to changes in SST in some areas of the TA. No other observing platform is continuously monitoring the tropical Atlantic surface and subsurface current system with the spatial and temporal resolutions provided by XBTs. In addition, Argo floats do not remain in this tropical region for a long time, making the temperature observations provided by AX08 very important in an area highly undersampled by profiling floats.
For more information about the operation of this transect click here.
AX08 Temperature Standard Deviation
The figure below shows the standard deviation of the mean temperature section along AX08.
