Methodical aspects of the application of acoustic Doppler current profilers in the Black Sea

Abstract

For the first time, an acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) produced by the RDI is used in the water area of the Black Sea in the lowered mode. This direction in the application of acoustic Doppler current profilers is now in the stage of development and verification of various procedures of measurements with subsequent data processing and enables one to get the distributions of current velocities down to depths of 1000–6000 m depending on the modification of the instrument. We describe the procedures of measurements performed with the help of the ADCP in the lowered mode in the course of an expedition and the stages of processing of the primary data based on the experience of application of similar acoustic current profilers at the Marine Hydrophysical Institute of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences accumulated in the 1980s. We generalize the experience of application of ADCP under the hydrological conditions of the Black Sea, propose the algorithms of data processing, present the profiles of absolute current velocity at several stations, compare these profiles with the geostrophic velocities, and determine the deep-water structure of the field of currents in a shelf-open-sea section made along 31.17°E.