BOTTOM PRESSURE CORRELATIONS IN THE SOUTH-ATLANTIC

Bottom pressure in the Fine Resolution Antarctic Model (FRAM) shows re gions where fluctuations are dominated by small-scale internal variabi lity of the currents, and are not directly related to the wind. There are often very sharp boundaries between these regions and regions of l arge scale coherence. Bearing this in mind, the measured coherence of BPR measurements near Tristan da Cunha island in the South Atlantic is taken as evidence that mesoscale variability associated with tile Ant arctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) reaches further north in the model th an in reality. There are many possible reasons for this, but the signi ficant result is that the BPR measurements can provide useful informat ion about the dynamical regime of the deep ocean, which can not be dis covered by surface measurements.