Satellite-image-derived Gulf Stream currents compared with numerical model results

Abstract

Sequential infrared satellite imagery is used to objectively compute surface currents in the Gulf Stream region using the maximum cross-correlation (MCC) method. The infrared images, filtered for cloud cover, are used to find the displacement of surface temperature patterns by locating the maximum cross correlation in windowed portions of the image pair. Statistical significance and next-neighbor filter techniques are applied to remove fictitious surface current vectors due to the presence of residual cloud or other nonadvective processes. To test the validity of the MCC technique in this geographic region where no in situ measurements were available, a quasigeostrophic numerical model was used to simulate ocean surface currents in the Gulf Stream region. -from Authors