Spatial Structure of the Antarctic Water Flow in the Vema Fracture Zone of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

Abstract

We study the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) flow in the Vema Fracture Zone of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge using the high-resolution Institute of Numerical Mathematics Ocean Model (INMOM) and data from field measurements. The key feature of this numerical modeling is high horizontal and vertical resolution in the bottom layer for the simulation of the flow in the narrow deepwater fracture, as well as the use of high-quality topography based on multibeam echo sounder measurements. Direct CTD and LADCP measurements performed onboard the R/V Akademik Sergey Vavilov in 2006 and 2014–2016 were used to verify the model. In this work, we analyze both the thermohaline structure of the bottom layer in the Vema Fracture Zone and kinematics of the flow over its entire length.