The applicability of the T/S method to geopotential anomaly computations in the Northeast Atlantic

Methods are tested for computing geopotential anomalies from temperature data in the subtropical Northeast Atlantic. Mean temperature-salinity, salinity-depth and density-depth relationships are determined for 3 x 3° squares, using hydrographie data from World Oceanographie Data Centre A. Geopotential anomalies computed from observed temperatures and salinities from these mean relationships are compared with anomalies from the original temperature and salinity data. For 0-500 dbar, geopotential anomalies can be weil approximated, and the methods also work reasonably weil for 0-1000 dbar. The approximation is poor for 0-2000 dbar. Appropriate methods for obtaining the best results in each 3 x 3° square are specified. The method is applied to a particular subset of the data