WHOI PO

The Brazil Current is probably the least known and explored of the western boundary currents of the world ocean. In this talk, we offer an overview of research carried out at the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo (IOUSP) on this current system's pattern, water masses and mesoscale variability. By blending small quasi-synoptic data sets, mooring data and simple process-oriented modeling, we propose an extension of the seminal work by Henry Stommel (1965). The BC system is described from its site of origin (~15S) to where its starts to separate from the continental margin, south of 35S.