The 1985”1986 Gibraltar Experiment: Data collection and preliminary results

The Strait of Gibraltar has attracted interest for centuries [Deacon, 1971]. Early inquiries concerned the process by which the inflowing surface water could be accommodated into a mass balance for the Mediterranean Sea. Modern interests have shifted focus to the unusual character of strait dynamics, such as the problems of high speed stratified rotating flow in the presence of irregular bottom and side boundaries, and to the mechanisms by which straits affect the adjacent oceanic environment [Bryden and Stommel, 1984]. Early attempts at generalizing the physical oceanography of straits resulted either in accounts that were almost pure description [Zubov, 1956] or in a dynamical analysis that appears to overemphasize friction [Defant, 1961]. More recent thinking has emphasized the dynamical importance of nonlinearity in the momentum equations, because of both the implications of internal hydraulic control on the surrounding ocean and the distinct nature of strait dynamics that is thus implied.