Georges Bank is a large submarine bank located southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, separating the Gulf of Maine from the western North Atlantic. A tidal mixing front (TNF) forms along the loci of points where the thermally-induced buoyancy input is equal to the tidal mixing-induced buoyancy removal, separating vertically well-mixed waters from stratified waters. Locations of the Georges Bank TMF and nearby shelf/slope front (SSF) can be determined using sea surface temperature (SST) fronts, which can now be mapped from satellite derived SST images using automated methods. As part of the Georges Bank GLOBEC Phase III project we will provide SST frontal positions to research vessels and collaborators, in real-time and on the World Wide Web, using daily cloud-cleared AVHRR satellite images which cover Georges Bank, the Gulf of Maine, the western Scotian shelf and nearby slope regions. We will maintain a very large data archive, containing all raw AVHRR SST images, acquired and processed in near real-time, together with corresponding SST frontal location images and data, which is accessible to research vessels and collaborating investigators over high-speed dial-in telephone lines and the World Wide Web.
