Three temperature sections that cross the tropical Atlantic obtained from high density XBT transects are used to identify the major surface currents and to compute their water mass transports. The dynamic heights are computed using XBT temperature profiles with salinity derived from historical T-S relationships. The values of dynamic height estimated from altimeter data used in conjunction with climatological dynamic height fields are within 3 cm of the XBT-derived values. The error in XBT-derived dynamic height introduced by using historical T-S relationships instead of actual salinity values are estimated to be of the order of 1.5 cm. Dynamic height estimates using the actual salinity values underestimate those obtained using historical T-S relationships. The structure exhibited in the dynamic height and altimeter-derived sea height fields do not reveal all the upper ocean currents, making these temperature sections presented here critical for computing transports and identifying currents in this region.