The Relationship between Variations in the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current and Straits of Florida Volume Transport

Abstract

Twelve years of monthly mean positions of the northern boundary of the Loop Current in the eastern Gulf of Mexico from satellite and in situ data have been compared with coincident 1977?1988 estimates of volume transport in the Straits of Florida in the subseasonal frequency band 15?1 to 5?1 cycles per month. Volume transport estimated from Cuba minus Florida sea level difference in this frequency band accounts for 69% of the variance in volume transport estimated from the Florida-Grand Bahama Island submarine cable. On average, the Loop Current has a dominant period of 11 months whereas the volume transport is dominated by annual spectral energy; little significant coherence squared occurs between them. The maximum northward penetration of the Loop Current occurs on average in winter when the volume transport is a minimum, but this is an artifact of the sampling epoch. This negative relationship is most pronounced for 1979?1981 when transport is characterized as unimodal, but for 1984?1985 and 1987 the Loop Current and volume transport are more in phase, bimodal, and transport and position tend to have more semiannual energy. In this subseasonal band, the volume transport undergoes a significant change in the phase of its annual cycle after 1985 as compared with 1977?1984. For the twelve years considered in this study, the ensemble correlation between monthly position of the Loop Current and volume transport is essentially zero.