Resolving Coastal Ocean Eddy Activity in Surface Velocity Signatures from Wellen Radars and an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler

Abstract

A dual-station high frequency Wellen Radar (WERA), transmitting at 16.045 MHz, was deployed along the east Florida Shelf and is currently operated and maintained by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science. From September 2004 to June 2005, a bottom-mounted acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) obtained subsurface current measurements within the radar footprint along the shelf break at 86-m depth. The RMS differences ranged from 0.1 to 0.25 ms <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-1</sup> between the surface and 14 m depth indicating good data. Monthly time series analyses indicated numerous current reversals during the 9-month deployment. When utilized in conjunction with the ADCP subsurface measurements, WERA enables 3-dimensional snapshots of coastal oceanographic features. Given the high temporal and spatial resolution of the WERA system, an increased understanding can be gained in the coastal ocean regime aiding the ability of ocean models at predicting complicated features in the domain.