Introduction Studies over the past several decades have used drifting buoys to improve our understanding of the North Atlantic surface circulation. Here we focus on the velocities obtained from drifters deployed during 1993-1997. The goal of the study is to understand the mean and variability of the surface flow, as well as the nature of the intrinsic scales in the real ocean and two ocean models, one eddy-permitting and one eddy-resolving, for that period. The results of these analyses are used to determine the potential usefulness of the models to synoptic forecasting of the surface circulation.		Abstract Introduction Model Descriptions Surface Drifters Numerical Trajectories Eulerian Statistics Mean Velocity Vectors MKE Ellipses EKE James test Lagrangian Statistics Diffusivities Time Scales Length Scales Summary Appendix A Appendix B Acronyms References Acknowledgements Forum