U.S. GLOBEC: The acquisition, processing and analysis of ship-board acoustic Doppler current profiling and underway sampling data

Julio Candela (WHOI), Charles Flagg (BNL), and Dick Payne (WHOI)

This project is responsible for the collection, processing and analysis of shipboard acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) and underway data for all the GLOBEC cruises to Georges Bank. For the past two years we have been collecting ADCP and underway data from cruises to the Bank and have developed the processing and data archiving systems to deal with this very large data set. The majority of the ADCP data was collected using an autonomous data acquisition system based upon the RDI's DAS 2.48 while the remainder of the data was collected using TRANSECT. Processed data have been made available to other GLOBEC investigators through a world wide web site. Since tides represent a large portion of the current signal on the Bank, we have been developing an empirical tidal model for the entire Bank based upon the ADCP data. We have also been developing techniques suitable for shallow water applications that will make it possible to use acoustic backscatter intensity data for planktonic biomass estimation. Underway data have also been collected, collated, processed and entered into the GLOBEC data base for general use. The main plan of the project is to continue the ADCP data collection and partial processing for the last three years of the GLOBEC field effort and to incorporate these information into the General GLOBEC data base.