Abstract The surface current in the spring of 1984 off the west coast of Ireland has been mapped from NOAA-8 thermal infrared images. The “feature-tracking method” has been used to derive flow vectors from advective sea surface temperature feature displacements and elapsed time. This feature-tracking method has a great advantage which gives a synoptic and spatial view of the velocity distribution over in situ measurements. Sequential images obtained on orbits 5596, 5610 and 5627 during the period 25-27 April 1984 have been used and geometrically corrected. With the 24 hours and 48 hours differences, the measurement accuracy achieved in the speed of sea features was ±1 8cm/s. The surface current pattern agrees with the main current pattern obtained by ships and drift bottles. A cyclonic eddy centred at 57° 04′ N 10° 59′ W has been studied. A very pronounced feature recognized is the sea surface front between mixed coastal water and stratified Atlantic water along the whole west coast of Ireland. The front ...
[1]
Sotaro Tanaka,et al.
Compilation of the Kuroshio Current Vector Map from NOAA-6/AVHRR Data and Consideration of Oceanic Eddies and the Short Period Fluctuation of the Kuroshio
,
1982
.
[2]
Andrew C. Vastano,et al.
Sea Surface Flow Estimation with Infrared and Visible Imagery
,
1985
.
[3]
W. Emery,et al.
An objective method for computing advective surface velocities from sequential infrared satellite images
,
1986
.
[4]
C. Edwards.
Water movements and the distribution of Hydromedusae in British and adjacent waters
,
1968
.
[5]
R. Legeckis.
Application of synchronous meteorological satellite data to the study of time dependent sea surface temperature changes along the boundary of the Gulf Stream
,
1975
.
[6]
Arthur P. Cracknell,et al.
Identification of gas flares in the North Sea using satellite data
,
1984
.