Hydrographic properties in the São Sebastião Channel: daily variations observed in March 1980

A four-day quasi-synoptic survey of hydrographic properties sampled from March 4 to March 7, 1980 was used for a physical description of the daily variations in the thermohaline and mass structures in the São Sebastião Channel. Temperature and salinity were sampled down the water column during events of non-tidal along channel current reversals. The observed temperature decrease and density increase in the southern channel bottom layer were mainly due to cold water transported northward by a subsurface current. The northward bottom current opposed the southward main flow in the upper layer. The low temperature and salinity of the water advected northward by the bottom current indicated influences of the South Atlantic Central Water (SACW), inducing a near bottom thermocline-like structure. By the end of the sampling period, the vertical temperature gradient intensified near the bottom and the salinity distribution reached almost uniform conditions.