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Stearns, L.; Muglia, M.; Seim, H.E.; Bane, J.; Surface Currents Off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, ASLO/TOS Ocean Research 2004 Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii

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SEACOOS investigators presented a poster for the theme "IOOS and Regional Observing Systems: Science, Status and Plans" at the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography/The Oceanography Society Ocean Research 2004 Conference, February 15-20, 2004, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The abstract and citation follow.

Abstract

Beginning in early summer 2003 two HF Radar units were deployed on the Outer Banks of North Carolina: at the Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility in Duck; and at the Cape Hatteras Coast Guard Facility in Buxton. Both were Long Range SeaSonde units, manufactured by Codar Ocean Sensors. This component of the regional observing system SEACOOS relies on ocean waves to scatter HF radio waves, then uses Doppler shift and theoretical wave speed to compute surface currents. Combining output from two sites results in a map of surface currents that are an average over a 6 by 6 km square of ocean up to 120 km from the shore. These measurements are a temporal average, outputting a three hour average every hour in near real time.

Our analysis focuses on long term mean currents and tidal harmonic analyses for all points of consistent coverage in the region. Tidal ellipse parameters are compared to model results. Since the region of data coverage often includes part of the Gulf Stream, characteristics of its flow are compared with thermal imagery.

Citation

Stearns, L.; Muglia, M.; Seim, H.E.; Bane, J.; Surface Currents Off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, ASLO/TOS Ocean Research 2004 Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii

The complete PDF poster is available.

For more information, see the SEACOOS Modeling Working Group and this SEACOOS news article.