Funding is provided for a two year continuation of the principal investigator's studies on the long-term variability of the North Atlantic as an Accomplishment Based Renewal. This research project builds on the successful field program of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), and the analysis of most of the cruise data and other data relating to decadal variability in the region. The specific topics that will be investigated are: (1) continued studies of zonal circulation using in-situ data and inverse methods for the 52W hydrographic section; (2) understanding of the nature and source of sub-annual energy in the subtropical gyre, which seems to dominate inter-annual energy both in the long Bermuda time series and for the altimeter; (3) investigation of the reason for strong persistence of SST anomalies in the region of the Slope Water south of Cape Cod; and extending the use of proxy data for the study of wintertime climate variability extending back into the 19th century to understand long-term cycles in sensitivity to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).
