Abstract:

This dataset is selected from existing historical ocean current measurements, mainly from ocean moorings, collected in the Gulf of Mexico between 1997-03-20 and 2014-06-27. Only moorings deployed in more than 1000 m of water are included, with records longer than 100 days and with less than 10% missing data. The dataset is used to investigate subinertial ocean currents and the subinertial modulation of internal waves in the subsurface ocean. The archived data were processed under quality control with a single uniform standard. In particular, unrealistic spikes and clearly bad data that are due to instrument malfunctions have been removed.

Suggested Citation:

Yingli Zhu. 2020. Selected historical mooring data in the Gulf of Mexico from 1997-03-20 to 2014-06-27. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/n7-7g3d-9q79

Purpose:

This dataset provides current records for analyzing variations of subinertial currents and modulations of internal waves in the subsurface ocean. Comparisons between the subinertial currents and the modulation of internal waves in the deep ocean, and further with surface currents can show us their relationships.

Data Parameters and Units:

tm (time, days since 1990-01-01 [days]), tm_date (date and time string, [DD-Mon-YYYY HH:MM:SS]), depthm (water depth [m]), depthm_H (instrument depth, [m]), readme (key/value listing of source data accession numbers), dsflag (source data accession numbers for each instrument), latm (latitude of instrument, [decimal degrees]), lonm (longitude of instrument, [decimal degrees], speedm (scalar current speed, [cm/s]), um (zonal velocity component, [cm/s]), vm (meridional velocity component, [cm/s]).

Methods:

Subsurface current data at mooring sites are collected from ten research projects from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Current time series from six moorings deployed from July 2012 to July 2013 in the region near the Deepwater Horizon spill event was provided by Gulf of Mexico Integrated Spill Response Consortium (GISR) and were downloaded from GRIIDC. GISR also provided data of five moorings in the region near the Deepwater Horizon spill event from July 2013 to July 2014. The current data (mentioned in the references section below) at mooring sites in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) are downloaded from NOAA’s NCEI. Seven moorings along 500m and 1000m isobaths in the northeastern GOM from March 1997 to April 1999 were deployed during the DeSoto Canyon Eddy Intrusion Study. As an extension of the DeSoto Canyon Eddy Intrusion Study, four near-bottom or short moorings and one full-depth mooring were deployed near the base of and on the Sigsbee Escarpment from August 1999 to September 2001. Current data at one mooring in the GOM from February 2000 to October 2004 were provided by Eddie Weeks of Louisiana State University. Fifteen short or near-bottom moorings and four tall or full-depth moorings were deployed during Exploratory Study of Deepwater Currents in the northern Gulf of Mexico by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) from February 2003 to April 2004. Current data from thirteen full-depth mooring in the U.S. part of the northwestern GOM and five full-depth moorings over the western margin of the Mexican continental slope were collected during the northwest Gulf of Mexico Study from March 2004 to July 2005, and additional current meter data were also available from five moorings deployed by the Centro de Investigación Científica y Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE) within the Mexican Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in water depths ranging from 438 m to 3524 m. Five mooring deployments were made at the center of the eastern GOM at a water depth of 3356 m from May 2000 to July 2007 for studying deep water manifestation of the Loop Current and Loop Current rings in the eastern GOM. Deepwater current profiles were collected from four moorings in the eastern GOM from January 2005 to January 2006 by Survey of Deepwater Currents in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. Nine full-depth or tall moorings, and six near-bottom moorings were deployed as part of the Dynamics of the Loop Current in U.S. Waters project in the GOM and by CANEK group at CICESE from April 2009 to November 2011.

Instruments:

Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), single-point current meters (RCM, SE).

Error Analysis:

Most of the raw current data recorded in these instruments have been cleaned and quality controlled, for instance, with calibrations and magnetic variation corrections applied resolved in-water start/stop times, and single point spikes removed. Some records were low-pass filtered with a cutoff period of three hours. Data are filtered to remove obvious outliers with value (zonal or meridional component) larger than eight times the standard deviation of the time series. Records shorter than 100 days or having less than 90% completeness are not considered in this study. Although velocity larger than 85 cm/s was observed in water depths of 2000 m (Hamilton and Lugo-Fernandez, 2001), strong currents greater than 1 m/s are rare in the deep ocean and might be biased due to instrument errors that can be seen in the collected data. We do not include the record below 1000 m in the following analysis that has maximum zonal or meridional velocity larger than 1.2 m/s. Data record interval is made nearly evenly spaced. For the raw data or those without knowing whether data were filtered, three-hour low-pass filter is applied.

Provenance and Historical References:

Blankinship, P. R.; Science Applications International Corporation - Raleigh, NC (2011). Current, physical profile, and meteorological data collected as part of the DeSoto Canyon Eddy Intrusion Study in the Gulf of Mexico by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), 3/20/1997 - 4/6/1999 (NODC Accession 0002568). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset. Blankinship, P. R.; Science Applications International Corporation - Raleigh, NC (2011). Current/temperature measurements near the Sigsbee Escarpment from the MMS Desoto Canyon Intrusion Study, 19990829 - 20010906 (NODC Accession 0002569). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset Blankinship, P. R.; Science Applications International Corporation - Raleigh, NC (2011). Current, physical profile, and meteorological data collected as part of the Exploratory Study of Deepwater Currents in the Gulf of Mexico by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), 2/28/2003 - 4/11/2004 (NODC Accession 0031345). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset. Blankinship, P. R.; Science Applications International Corporation - Bay St. Louis, Ms (2011). Physical profile data and meteorological data collected from moored buoys in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico from 20040320 to 20050703 (NODC Accession 0055092). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset. Blankinship, P. R.; Leidos (2015). Oceanographic data obtained from CTD and current meters as part of the Dynamics of the Loop Current in U.S. Waters project in the Gulf of Mexico from 2009-04-19 to 2011-11-14 (NCEI Accession 0126392). Version 1.1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. Dataset. Cox, J.; Evans-Hamilton, Inc (2011). Physical, chemical, and deepwater current profiles collected from CTD, XBT, and ADCP moorings in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico from January 19, 2005 to January 28, 2006 (NODC Accession 0070922). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset. Diercks, A.-R., Dike, C., Asper, V. L., DiMarco, S. F., Chanton, J. P., & Passow, U. (2018). Scales of seafloor sediment resuspension in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Elem Sci Anth, 6(1), 32. doi:10.1525/elementa.285 Donohue, K., P. Hamilton, K. Leaman, R. Leben, M. Prater, D.R.Watts, and E. Waddell. 2006. Exploratory study of deepwater currents in the Gulf of Mexico. Volume I: Executive summary. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2006-073. 86 pp. Donohue, K., P. Hamilton, R. Leben, R.Watts, and E. Waddell. 2008. Survey of deepwater currents in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. Volume II: Technical report. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2008-031. 375 pp. Hamilton, P., J.J. Singer, E. Waddell, and K. Donohue. 2003. Deepwater Observations in the Northern Gulf of Mexico from In-situ Current Meters and PIES. Final Report, Volume II: Technical Report. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2003-049. 95 pp. Hamilton, P., & Lugo-Fernandez, A. (2001). Observations of high speed deep currents in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Geophysical Research Letters, 28(14), 2867–2870. doi:10.1029/2001gl013039 Hamilton, P., T. J. Berger, J.J. Singer, E. Waddell, J.H. Churchill, R.R. Leben, T.N. Lee, and W. Sturges. Desoto Canyon Eddy Intrusion Study, Final Report, Volume II: Technical Report. OCS Study MMS 2000-080. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. 275 pp. Spencer, L. J., DiMarco, S. F., Wang, Z., Kuehl, J. J., & Brooks, D. A. (2016). Asymmetric oceanic response to a hurricane: Deep water observations during Hurricane Isaac. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. doi:10.1002/2015jc011560 Weeks, E.; Louisiana State University (2011). Physical oceanographic time series data from current meters and CTDs on one mooring in the Gulf of Mexico from 2/16/2000 to 6/10/2004 (NODC Accession 0013168). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset Weeks, E.; Louisiana State University (2011). Physical oceanographic time series data from moored current meters, ADCP, and CTD, and profile data from CTD in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico from 5/31/2000 to 7/10/2007 (NODC Accession 0061206). Version 1.1. National Oceanographic Data Center, NOAA. Dataset. Welsh, S.E., M. Inoue, L.J. Rouse, Jr., and E. Weeks. 2009. Observation of the deepwater manifestation of the Loop Current and Loop Current rings in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2009-050. 110 pp.

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