Estimation of Spatial Covariances From the Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment

A variety of measurement techniques were utilized. Using data from freely drifting Sofar floats and from hydrographic casts, the authors estimated the spatial covariance functions and the associated variance spectra.

To make these functions physically acceptable, they performed smoothing by averaging in wave-number space; azimuthal averages of these smoothed functions yielded estimates of isotropic covariances. Finally, they fitted analytic functional forms to the isotropic covariances for subsequent use in objective analyses.