Anticyclonic rings in the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

The Gulf of Mexico is a semi-closed sea that displays great variability in its circulation. The dynamics of this sea has been intensively studied not only by the scientific community but also by the oil industry, because of the presence of intense rings that may affect the offshore oils structures. A numerical model, the Colorado University Princeton Ocean Model (CUPOM), was develop and has been used during the last decades (Kantha and Clayson, 1994). Here we have used this model, with a 1/12 degree resolution in 24 sigma-layers, to obtain the temporal evolution of temperature and salinity vertical sections across an anticyclonic eddy that develops within the Gulf, and to analyze the behaviour of simulated parcel trajectories within this eddy. [...]