Correction of ADCP Compass Errors Resulting from Iron in the Instrument’s Vicinity*

Abstract

AbstractIron in the vicinity of compasses results in compass deviations. ADCPs mounted on steel buoyancy devices and deployed on seven moorings on the East Greenland outer shelf and upper slope from 2007 to 2008 suffered from severe compass deviations as large as 90°, rendering the ADCP data useless without a compass correction. The effects on the measured velocities, which may also be present in other oceanic velocity measurements, are explained. On each of the moorings, velocity measurements from a different instrument are overlapping in space and time with the compromised measurements. The iron was not in the vicinity of this second instrument, and the instrument is therefore assumed not to be affected by compass deviations. A method is described to determine the compass deviation from the compromised and uncompromised velocity measurements, and the compromised compass headings. The method depends on the assumptions that at least one instrument per mooring is not compromised and that the change in flow direction over the vertical distance from the compromised to the uncompromised velocity measurement is zero on average. With this method, the compromised headings and the compromised velocity records can be corrected. The method is described in detail and a MATLAB function implementing the method is supplied. The success of the method is demonstrated for a mooring with a minor compass deviation and for one with a large amplitude deviation.