Twenty-year ocean-current data record now available
A Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA) buoy takes measurements at sea. Credit: NOAA
For more than 20 years an observatory at 23°W on the equator has been measuring velocities of the local ocean current system that is of great importance for our climate. These data have now been made publicly available for the first time. Researchers from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel together with French and US-American project partners have published detailed information about the time series and the individual components of the moorings in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science. The publication aims to advance further analyses and model studies.
From the regional oxygen supply to impacting weather conditions: Ocean currents are important for life in the ocean as well as for the climate over the surrounding continents. For these reasons, an ocean observatory at the equator, at 23°W, has been recording the velocities of the equatorial current system for the last 20 years down to 3500 m water depth. Scientists at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, in collaboration with French and US project partners, have now made this long-term series publicly available as a consistent data set for the first time. The description of the individual instruments and further details about the measurements and the building of the time series have been published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.
Read more at the link below.