The trajectories released to the north of the GS recirculate in a largeanticyclone at the Gulf Stream separation point and th

Studies over the past several decades have used surface drifters to aid in our understanding of the mean and variability of the North Atlantic surface circulation. Richardson (1983) calculated Eulerian statistics of velocity data derived from 110 drifting buoys that were mainly deployed in the mid-latitudes of the western Atlantic; the data were concentrated in the years 1977-1980. In particular, he produced a horizontal map of the mean eddy kinetic energy per unit mass (EKE) (see Appendix A) on a 2°x2° grid between 20°N and 55°N. He found a peak in eddy energy of 3000 cm²s^-2 coinciding with the high speed and convoluted meander region of the Gulf Stream. Low values (100-200 cm²s^-2) were found in the gyre interior, the eastern Atlantic, and the North Equatorial Current. Krauss and Käse (1984), using trajectories of 62 buoys deployed further north and east than those of Richardson (1983), created an EKE map using 3°x 3° bins. They obtained values along the North Atlantic Current (NAC) ranging from 1500 cm²s^-2 south of Newfoundland to 300 cm²s^-2 west of Scotland. Colin de Verdière (1983) was first to obtain Lagrangian statistics from drifting buoys in the North Atlantic; using 16 drifters deployed in a 100 km area of the eastern Atlantic he obtained Lagrangian time scales of about 12 days. Krauss and Böning (1987),using 113 drifter tracks from a larger area of the North Atlantic, found a decreasing trend in Lagrangian time scales from the subtropics to the NAC. Poulain et al. (1996) calculated Eulerian and Lagrangian statistics from 107 trajectories obtained from surface buoys released in the Nordic Seas between June 1991 and August 1993; measurements continued through April 1995. Their EKE map, constructed using 2°longitude x 1° latitude bins, displays maximum values (> 700 cm²s^-2) northwest of the Lofoten and Vesteraalen Islands (around 15°E, 68°N) in the Norwegian Atlantic Current and minimum values (< 30cm²s^-2) over the southern Iceland Plateau (345°W, 68<°N). Their Lagrangian time and space scales are 1-3 days and 10-40 km, respectively.