EXPEREMENT POLYGON-70

Abstract

in 1970, an experiment named polygon–70 was carried out by russian oceanographers in the tropical zone of the north atlantic. during this experiment, seventeen autonomous buoy moorings were deployed for the period of half-a-year to measure ocean currents in the ocean layer ranging from the surface to the depth of 1500 m. the outcome of this work was the discovery of what later became known as “synoptic eddies of the open ocean”. it revealed the scale, the nature of time variability and energy of these vortices, as well as an interpretation of the observed phenomena from the point of view of the theory of rossby waves. it was suggested, that the emergence of the vortices was due to baroclinic instability of large-scale flow. these results of polygon–70 expedition showed its outstanding value and provided basis for further development of studies of ocean vortices.