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Before 1965 many scientists pictured the circulation of the ocean’s water mass as consisting of large, slow-moving currents, such as the Gulf Stream. That view, based on 100 years of observations made around the globe, produced only a rough approximation of the true circulation. But in the 1950’s and the 1960’s, researchers began to employ newly developed techniques and equipment, including subsurface floats that move with ocean currents and emit identification signals, and oceancurrent meters that record data for months at fixed locations in the ocean. These instruments disclosed an unexpected level of variability in the deep ocean. Rather than being characterized by smooth, large-scale currents that change seasonally (if at all), the seas are dominated by what oceanographers call mesoscale fields: fluctuating, energetic flows whose velocity can reach ten times the mean velocity of the major currents.
Mesoscale phenomena—the oceanic analogue of weather system
