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OAS accession Detail for 0302838
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Title: Surface ocean radial velocities obtained by HF-radar from stations located along coastal waters of eastern US/Gulf of Mexico and western US during June 2005 (NCEI Accession 0302838)
Abstract: This dataset contains surface ocean radial velocities obtained by HF-radar from stations located along coastal waters of the United States. Radial velocity files contain metadata in a key-value format, while the measured velocities and associated ancillary data are reported in a tab-delimited format.

The National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) — in collaboration with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography through June 2025 and thereafter with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) — assembles the data from the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Surface Currents Program’s High-Frequency (HF) Radar National Network and submits the data on a monthly basis to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

Scripps Institution of Oceanography has submitted these data to NCEI to supplement the data previously received from NDBC.

Remote sensing of ocean surface velocity from shore-based HF-radar sensors bridges an operational observational gap between point samples obtained from in-situ sampling and synoptic scale relatively low resolution data obtained from satellites by providing continuous mesoscale coverage at relatively high resolution near the coast. HF-radar systems measure the speed of ocean surface currents in directions radial to the antenna in near real time. Radial velocities alone are a measurement of surface ocean velocity projected along the direction radial to the antenna, which only show those currents’ movement towards or away from the HF-radar sensor’s antenna. Radial measurements of ocean velocity may be used directly in some applications such as model assimilation but are commonly used in combination with overlapping sites to estimate the total vector ocean velocity.

Systems operate continuously in all weather conditions and are installed near the coastline. Range resolution of measured currents is determined by the radar transmit bandwidth used. Bandwidth is controlled by radio frequency licenses and translates to range resolutions of 0.5 to 6 kilometers. Maximum ranges of current measurements also depend on radar transmit frequency and vary from about 40 km offshore to about 200 km offshore. Velocities are measured in the upper 0.3 - 2.5 meters of the ocean depending on the operating frequency and vertical velocity shear profile.
Date received: 20250309
Start date: 20050601
End date: 20050630
Seanames: Coastal Waters of Gulf of America, Coastal Waters of Gulf of Mexico, Coastal Waters of Texas, Gulf of America, Gulf of Mexico, New York Bight, North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean
West boundary: -122.0661
East boundary: -66.211433
North boundary: 44.08605
South boundary: 27.587583
Observation types: current measurements - surface currents, physical
Instrument types: radar - high frequency oceanographic
Datatypes: CURRENT SPEED - EAST/WEST COMPONENT (U), CURRENT SPEED - NORTH/SOUTH COMPONENT (V)
Submitter: Otero, Mark
Submitting institution: University of California San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Collecting institutions: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Texas A&M University; College Station, University of California San Diego; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California - Santa Barbara, University of Maine, US Navy; Naval Postgraduate School
Contributing projects: Integrated Ocean Observing System Data Assembly Centers Data Stewardship Program, IOOS
Platforms:
Number of observations:
Supplementary information: Documents about processing HF-radar data and other related information are archived in NCEI accession 0126755.
Availability date:
Metadata version: 1
Keydate: 2025-03-24 03:30:19+00
Editdate: 2025-03-24 04:26:57+00