© 2002 Eugene S. Takle
Ocean drift current speeds are important factors in understanding the poleward transport of heat away from tropical regions. Bower et al (2002) report in situ measurements of ocean current speeds in the North Atlantic basin. They find that the western boundary current (near North America) is 15-20 cm/s up to about 52ºN (north of Newfoundland). The mean current then turns eastward across the Atlantic and fans out with speeds dropping to about 2 cm/s. It then speeds up to about 3-4 cm/s over the mid-Atlantic ridge before curving northward again into the Iceland basin where the speed drops to about 2 cm/s. The authors used floats tracked acoustically with an array of 18 moored sound sources maintained throughout the North Atlantic basin.
Reference
Bower, A. S., B. Le Cann, T. Rossby, W. Zenk, J. Gould, K. Speer, P. L. Richardson, M. D. Prater, and H.-M. Zhang, 2002: Directly measured mid-depth circulation in the northeastern North Atlantic Ocean. Nature, 419, 603-607.