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Ocean currents from lowered acoustic Doppler current profilers (LADCP) of the Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP) starting 2015 assembled at the University of Hawaii and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University

Metadata Updated: December 1, 2023

This collection holds the Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profile (LADCP) estimates of ocean currents collected for the Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP). GO-SHIP brings together scientists with interests in physical oceanography, the carbon cycle, marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems, and other users and collectors of ocean interior data, and coordinates a network of globally sustained hydrographic sections as part of the global ocean/climate observing system including physical oceanography, the carbon cycle, marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems.

To understand the ocean currents through the water column, LADCPs are employed. LADCPs estimate deep ocean absolute currents and shear. LADCP specialists of the University of Hawaii (UH) and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) serve as the conduit to integrate LADCP data from international sources into a common database in support of GO-SHIP. LADCP data in this collection begin in 2015 with 1-2 cruises per year, which revisit World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) transect lines across the major ocean basins. Files within each granule of the collection consist of either ASCII text or NetCDF formats for the science-ready data, though there are some proprietary formats for the raw data directories, which are included to give advanced users the opportunity to reprocess the set.

ADCPs use the Doppler shift of an outgoing frequency along a beam to return measured velocity along that beam. ADCPs typically have 4 beams, allowing measurement of velocity in 3 dimensions, in bins of varying distances from the transducer head. In this application, the ADCP is mounted on a Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) rosette frame and lowered along with the rest of the package, hence called Lowered ADCP ("LADCP"). The goal is to determine water velocities to the full depth of the ocean for each LADCP deployment. Ocean velocities are very small (few cm/s), especially in the deep water. The package is typically lowered or raised at 1m/s for much of the water column, creating a challenging data processing situation. Lowered ADCP data requires ancillary information to calculate ocean velocities and turbulence parameters. Ancillary measurements included in the submission package include Conductivity, Temperature, Depth, at 24Hz, with 1Hz position, and shipboard ADCP data.

For the NCEI archive of GO-SHIP LADCP, three levels are defined: 1) Level-0, raw LADCP and ancillary data streams of the down- and up-cast, 2) Level-1, processed LADCP and ancillary data streams for the down-, up-, and averaged cast, and 3) Level-2 science-ready subset of select parameters. Presently only Levels 0 and 1 will be archived since work continues for defining error associated with Level 3. There is one processed file per station cast. The ancillary streams of Level-1 are the basic oceanographic variables of interest, and may also include a variety of additional fields associated with the processing.

Access & Use Information

License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Date 2023-10-06T17:56:08Z
Metadata Created Date December 19, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 1, 2023
Reference Date(s) November 5, 2020 (publication), May 6, 2022 (revision)
Frequency Of Update asNeeded

Metadata Source

Harvested from NOAA/NESDIS/ncei/accessions

Graphic Preview

Preview graphic

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Series
Metadata Date 2023-10-06T17:56:08Z
Metadata Created Date December 19, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 1, 2023
Reference Date(s) November 5, 2020 (publication), May 6, 2022 (revision)
Responsible Party (Point of Contact)
Contact Email
Guid gov.noaa.nodc:GOSHIP-LADCP
Access Constraints Cite as: Firing, Eric; Hummon, Julia M.; Thurnherr, Andreas M. (2020). Ocean currents from lowered acoustic Doppler current profilers (LADCP) of the Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigations Program (GO-SHIP) starting 2015 assembled at the University of Hawaii and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University. [indicate subset used]. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/GOSHIP-LADCP. Accessed [date]., Use liability: NOAA and NCEI cannot provide any warranty as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of furnished data. Users assume responsibility to determine the usability of these data. The user is responsible for the results of any application of this data for other than its intended purpose.
Bbox East Long -68.25
Bbox North Lat 56.791
Bbox South Lat -75.30
Bbox West Long 16.56
Coupled Resource
Frequency Of Update asNeeded
Graphic Preview Description Preview graphic
Graphic Preview File https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/metadata/landing-page/bin/gfx?id=gov.noaa.nodc:GOSHIP-LADCP
Graphic Preview Type PNG
Harvest Object Id 6152f827-2932-4c7d-ba3c-d10337091a63
Harvest Source Id c084a438-6f6b-470d-93e0-16aeddb9f513
Harvest Source Title NOAA/NESDIS/ncei/accessions
Licence accessLevel: Public
Lineage
Metadata Language eng
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[16.56, -75.3], [-68.25, -75.3], [-68.25, 56.791], [16.56, 56.791], [16.56, -75.3]]]}
Progress completed
Spatial Data Service Type
Spatial Reference System
Spatial Harvester True
Temporal Extent Begin 2015-04-10
Temporal Extent End 2019-05-14

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