THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAINE COASTAL CURRENT DURING 1982

The mean position of the cold, less-saline Maine Coastal Current and i ts spatial and temporal variability in the northern Gulf of Maine duri ng 1982 were studied using optimally interpolated, satellite-derived, sea surface temperature maps and ship of opportunity data. Five-day av eraged sea surface temperature maps were produced at five-day interval s at a spatial resolution of similar to 11 km from daily, spatially av eraged, full-resolution, declouded Advanced Very High Resolution Radio meter data collected over the entire Gulf of Maine. Optimally interpol ated mean sea surface temperature errors were less than half of the no n-seasonal sea surface temperature root mean square variability over s imilar to 95% of the study domain, including the Maine Coastal Current region. Results showed that 82% (88%) of the non-seasonal sea surface temperature variance within an inshore (offshore) branch of the Maine Coastal Current occurred on time scales of 1-2 months with little var iance occurring within the 10-day to 1-month band. Furthermore, the no n-seasonal sea surface temperature fluctuations within both branches o f the Maine Coastal Current were coherent within the lower frequency b and. Sea surface temperatures and ship of opportunity data suggest tha t the non-seasonal physical, chemical and biological variability withi n the inshore and offshore branches of the Maine Coastal Current durin g 1982 are related and were caused by advection resulting from low-fre quency variability in the geostrophic flow over Jordan Basin, and excl usive of salinity, may account for most of the observed low-frequency physical, chemical and biological variability measured within the surf ace and near-surface waters of both branches of the Current during 198 2. Differences between the non-seasonal fluctuations of surface salini ty measured within both branches of the Maine Coastal Current during 1 982 may have resulted from additional forcing by both remote and local freshwater sources.