The report contains analyses and results obtained from 17 Profiling Autonomous LaGrangian Circulation Explorer (PALACE) floats set in the northern Gulf of Mexico in April and July 1998.  The floats were set to drift at 900-m depth with 7-day cycle times.  They had temperature sensors and profiled temperature at the end of each cycle.  The floats often drifted in water shallower than their programmed drift depth when they were at the surface portions of their cycles.  Even so they yielded about 1,300 samples of the current at 900-m depth and about 1,500 temperature profiles throughout the open Gulf of Mexico for nearly a 4-year period.  The floats’ deep drifts show a net counter-clockwise circulation pattern at 900-m depth around the borders of the Gulf of Mexico which strengthens into a 0.1 m/s current in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico.  The temperature profiles indicate that temperature inversions are common throughout the open Gulf of Mexico in the surface layer.  Half of the profiles showed such inversions, and they are interpreted as an indication of coastal, riverine waters.  The inversions show a seasonality being rather common in the winter and uncommon in the summer. 

This report is available only in compact disc format.  The discs are available from the Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, at a charge of $15.00 by referencing OCS Study MMS 2004-013.  The report may be ordered through the Minerals Management Service’s on-line ordering system at http://www.gomr.mms.gov/WebStore/front.asp.  You will be able to obtain this report also from the National Technical Information Service in the near future.  Here are the addresses.  You may also inspect copies at selected Federal Depository Libraries.