THE DROGUING OF MEDDY PINBALL AND SEEDING WITH ALACE FLOATS

This paper reports the results of a hydrographic survey and the succes sful deliberate deep droguing of a meddy (Pinball) and the seeding of its core with two ALACE floats. The drogued buoy results give importan t kinematic properties of the eddy core in real time; the ALACE have a llowed the position of the meddy to be tracked for seven months. Pinba ll was found against the continental slope near Lisbon canyon. The max imum core salinity was 36.564 psu, at a depth of 1260 m, but the maxim um rotation rate with period similar to 2.5 d was in the upper core ne ar 700 m, where temperatures reached 13.2 degrees C. The azimuthal tra nsport to a radius of 50 km was similar to 13 Sv. Pinball moved from t he continental slope near Lisbon to the central Tagus Abyssal Plain, r eturned towards the continental slope and then moved westwards crossin g the central Tagus Abyssal Plain a second time. At times it had a mar ked remote sensing infra-red sea-surface signature. It moved similar t o 550 km over 204 d and the near real-time data meant that, in princip le, this eddy could have been re-surveyed, redrogued or reseeded with floats during this period.