Figure 7. Track of USS MARYSVILLE showing where temperature data were 

 collected off the southern tip of Baja California during NEL Thermistor Chain 



Cruise 8. 



Dividing Y k by 304 gave the isotherm slope in the direction of the 

 ship's motion. 



Using more than 65, 000 data samplings, LaFond and 

 LaFond found the median of the absolute slope values to be 25' 

 and the 70th percentile of the absolute values to be 0°51' south of 

 Baja California. On the Pacific side of the peninsula, LaFond 

 found the mean slope to be 0°16' and the 70th percentile to be 

 0°30'. 



The 70th percentile value for the Pacific slopes is 0.9 x 10 " 2 , 

 and south of Baja California the 70th percentile value is 

 1.5 x 10 " 2 . These values agree with the previously given mean 

 value for dz/dx . Therefore it is concluded that slopes of isother- 

 mal surfaces are of the order 10 " 2 . 



For a closer examination of the horizontal- and vertical- 

 gradient proportionality, the logarithm of the horizontal gradient 

 was plotted as the ordinate and the logarithm of the corresponding 

 vertical gradient was plotted as the abscissa (fig. 8) . The method 



21 



