The focus of this study is the small region along eastern Georges Bank and
Northeast Channel within the Gulf of Maine. Earlier studies conducted with
US GLOBEC - Georges Bank program show the importance of the circulation
pattern in and near the NEC for the Georges Bank ecosystem. Model studies
have shown, that the basic flow on the western Scotian Shelf and in the
NEC would rather follow the bathymetry rather than crossing a the NEC.
Evidence of episodically occurring Scotian Shelf Water Crossover (SSWC)
events, in which Scotian Shelf Water (SSW) crosses the NEC directly from
Browns Bank to Georges Bank have been observed using moorings, drifters
and satellite-derived sea surface temperature. Here, a comprehensive study
of satellite-derived SST was performed to study the occurrence of SSWC
events in time and space during 1985 through March 2001, with special
emphasis on the US-GLOBEC Georges Bank focus period of 1995-1999. Five-day
composited SST anomalies were computed to eliminate influence of the
weather band and the seasonal cycle. SST data were binned in 34 11km2
boxes along the eastern and western side of the North East Channel. SST
anomalies are highly correlated with NDCP buoy 44011. Results show a five
year periodicity of years with high counts of SSWC suggesting a strong
interannual variability of SSWC events. Findings indicate that surface
SSWC events depart on the southern most tip of Browns Bank and arrive
between 41.4−42◦N along the western side of the Northeast
Channel, but not further to the northwest.