N and S.
When combined with a precise determination of the spacecraft orbit,
the altimetry will yield global maps of ocean topography from
which the speed and directions of ocean currents worldwide will
be calculated.
The TOPEX/POSEIDON orbit was carefully designed to avoid aliasing
the solar tides into undesirable frequencies as happens with
sun-synchronous spacecraft, which allows it to serve as a global
tide gauge. Other features that contribute to the precise and
accurate alimetry of this instrument include a higher orbit
than other spacecraft, the inclusion of a water vapor radiometer
designed to collect correction information, an ionosphere
insensitive altimeter, and more accurate tracking than for
other missions.
See the
TOPEX/Poseidon Web site.
where 
is the density of the ozone and 
the
concentration. Total ozone is expressed in
Dobson units (DU).
See Salby (1992).
N in 1985.
in 1985.
N and
S, towards to equator, from north to east in the northern hemisphere
and south to east in the southern hemisphere.
Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s produced
tritium in quantities that dwarfed the natural inventory which,
given the subsequent cessation of such testing, offered a unique
opportunity to study the long-term transport through the ocean
of a large spike of an important and readily identified tracer.
About 500 kg of tritium was produced by the weapons testing
programs, boosting the concentration in precipitation to
as high as 10,000 TU in places, with surface seawater concentrations
reaching 20-30 TU in the northern hemisphere.
The latitudinal distribution of weapons tritium delivery to the ocean
is characterized by mid-latitude maxima (near 45-50 )
with about a five-fold asymmetry between northern and southern
hemisphere. The time history of surface delivery is a spike
for the northern hemisphere and more extended for the southern
hemisphere.
The usefulness of tritium as a tracer is due to its time history not monotonically increasing (i.e. the weapons source is no more) which gives independent time information, the strong hemispheric asymmetry in its delivery which is valuable in the study of cross-equatorial flow and, finally, its nature as an ideal fluid tracer since, being part of the water molecule, it is unaffected by biological and chemical processes. The long-term evolution of its large-scale distribution will provide much useful information about ocean circulation processes. See Sarmiento (1988) and Broecker and Peng (1982).
. It will
also be non-sun-synchronous in order to sample the diurnal
cycle over monthly periods.
See the TRMM Web site and
Simpson et al. (1988).
F per 100 feet. It is bounded
above by the tropopause which varies
with latitude and season. This layer is characterized by strong
vertical mixing associated with latent heat effects and clouds.
N, gradually merges with
the Oyashio Current, and finally
becomes part of the Northern Pacific Polar Front.
The Tsugara is a continuation of the northerward flowing
Tsushima Current.
See Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).
Tsunamis are primarily created by vertical movements of the sea floor caused by tectonic activity. This causes rapid vertical movements in the sea surface over a large area which leads to the formation of a train of very long period waves, with periods exceeding one hour not unusual. Secondary mechanisms for tsunami formation are landslides and volanic activity, with the effects of the resultant waves more localized than those of the tectonic variety which may travel across ocean basins. See Camfield (1990).
N when it
encounters the Tsushima Islands, with the western branch
following the Korea coast and eventually turning east to
join the Polar Front and the eastern branch closely following
the Japanese coast until it becomes the Tsugara Current.
The transport varies seasonally, with August transport
about 1.3 Sv (at up to 4 m/s) and January transport
only 0.2 Sv (below 0.1 m/s). Most of the increased August
transport passes through the western branch as the eastern
branch is weak year round. Both branches are prone to
major pathway shifts and the western branch tends to shed
large eddies where it separates from the Korean coast.
The western branch has also been called the
East Korea Current.
See Lie and Cho (1994) and Tomczak and Godfrey (1994).