Correlation Between Temperature and Salinity Variations as a Characteristic of the North Atlantic Waters

A. A. Postnov, N. V. Zhokhova, and E. V. Borisov

Based on the data of deep-ocean ship observations of temperature T and salinity S, analysis is carried out of the fields of pair correlation coefficients between T and S at different depths as an additional characteristic of water masses in the layer 0–1000 m in the North Atlantic. As a result of analysis, surface, subsurface, and the upper part of North Atlantic intermediate waters are classified according to a degree of correlation between temperature and salinity. The emphasis was given to regions with low correlations, because they indicate the prevalence of the interaction processes that differ most from the typical mixing of two water masses with entirely different characteristics.