HR: 15:10h
AN: GP33A-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Experimental and theoretical evaluation of magnetic field variations caused by ocean currents
AU: * Glazman, R E
EM: reg@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Dr M/S 300-323, Pasadena, CA 91109 United States
AU: Golubev, Y N
EM: ygolubev@pacific.jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Raytheon ITSS, 299 N. Euclid Ave. Suite 500, Pasadena, CA 91101 United States
AB: The last few years have seen a greatly increased exploratory activity on possible use of magnetic field variations, observed at sea surface and at satellite altitude, as a source of information on ocean currents. Recent theoretical studies reported values up to 4 nanotesla (nT) for the field magnitude at the sea surface, which translates into 1 to 2 nT at the satellite altitudes 400 to 500 km. We now demonstrate that a more accurate mathematical formulation and numerical solution of the problem yields values three times as high as previously thought. This signal is strong enough to be detectable at either sea surface or satellite altitude by existing magnetometers. However, our analysis of data from island magnetometer observatories and from the Champ satellite indicates that the ocean-induced signal is not easy to discern from a noisy background of other factors (such as ionospheric noise, etc.). The only ocean area where the ocean-induced variations appear to be detectable in observations (using relatively simple means of data analysis) is an ACC region between approximately 90 and 190 deg E. Our results are presented along with the novel data analysis techniques developed for this study.
DE: 4275 Remote sensing and electromagnetic processes (0689)
DE: 1512 Environmental magnetism
DE: 1517 Magnetic anomaly modeling
DE: 1555 Time variations--diurnal to secular
DE: 1640 Remote sensing
SC: Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism [GP]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting