Evaluation of HF ground-wave radar on the east coast of Canada

Abstract

HF ground-wave radar runs of roughly ten days duration were carded out in two tidally dominated regions off the Canadian East Coast in conjunction with oceanographic experiments. The surface current deduced from the HF radar observations are here compared with Eulerian velocities from various moored current meters and Lagrangian velocities derived from surface drifters. The agreement with the current meters is generally better than 0.05 m/s. Real current shear in the top 15 m of the water column of up to 0.1 m/s, lasting for up to 12 h, was observed on several occasions, coincident with wind reversals. The agreement between moored instruments and shallow-draft rectangular drifters was good, and with deeper draft cylindrical drifters it was excellent.