Thermohaline intrusions observation using acoustic reflectivity

48th Liège Colloquium: Submesoscale Processes. Mechanisms, Implications and New Frontiers, 23-27 May 2016, Liège, Belgium.-- 1 pageAcoustic reflectivity acquired with multichannel seismic reflection systems allow to detect and explore thermohaline structure in the ocean with vertical and lateral resolutions in the order of 10 m, covering hundreds of kilometers in the lateral dimension and the full-depth water column. We present acoustic data that image the thermohaline intrusions developed along the lateral front between the Mediterranean water transported by an eddy and the surrounding Atlantic water, in the Gulf of Cadiz, NE Atlantic Ocean. The inversion of temperature, salinity and potential density from time and space-coincident acoustic reflectivity and XBT data recovers low frequency content ( 10Hz) from acoustic reflectivity, which results in 2D maps of temperature, salinity and potential density, with accuracies of δTsd = 0.1oC, δSsd = 0.09 and δpsd = 0.02kg/m3, respectively. Acoustic reflectors and inverted potential density are eventually compared to better understanding the contribution of the acoustic reflectivity to the multiscale observation of the physics of the oceanPeer Reviewe