Directory taodata/currents

This directory contains files of daily averaged wind, current, temperature 
and humidity data from current meter moorings maintained by NOAA's 
Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.  This directory also contains
data from island wind stations.  Wind, temperature and humidity data 
presented here are duplicates of those in directories containing data 
from all TAO moorings (taodata/surface and taodata/temp).  Current data
in this directory are from mechanical current meters (EG&G VMCM and VACM).
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)  data from TAO moorings may be 
found in the subdirectory taodata/currents/adcp.

The data are organized by location and measured parameter. File names are 
of the form "site.parameter", e.g. "140w.temperature".  Unless specified 
otherwise, all mooring sites are on the equator.  The "parameter" field 
in mooring filenames can be "temperature", "humidity", or "velocity".  

Daily means are computed between 0000 and 2359 GMT.

"Velocity" files contain both wind and current, and are sectioned by 
depth and each depth section begins with 4 header records which explain 
content and format.  "Velocity" files have 4 daily means per data line,
i.e. zonal and meridional velocity for 4 consecutive days starting
from day "n" would be listed in the order 
U(n),V(n),U(n+1),V(n+1),U(n+2),V(n+2),U(n+3),V(n+3).
 
"Temperature" files may have more than one section depending on the
number of depth levels at which measurements were made.  Each section
begins with 4 header records which explain the content and format,
followed by data records containing data at several levels on the
same day.

"Humidity" files have one section which begins with 4 header records
followed by data records, each containing 12 consecutive daily values.

The island stations are combined into one file named "ISLANDS.WIND".  
which is organized by location.  In addition to wind velocity some
sites have air temperature and/or barometric pressure at times.  
Island wind is at either 10 m or 30 m and air temperature and 
pressure at 8 m above ground.

Moorings are recovered and redeployed at roughly 6-month intervals.
After processing and quality checks have been performed data will be 
appended to existing files 3-6 months after recovery.

Moorings have on occasion broken free from their anchors and drifted
from their deployed location while still returning data. Daily mooring 
locations can be found in the corresponding met data files. For example, 
to find the locations for the mooring at 0n110w, refer to the file 
0n110w.met in the directory taodata/surface. Daily velocity data 
from these drifting buoys have been corrected using drift velocities 
computed from location changes.  Other variables (temperature and
humidity) have not been corrected.  Care should be used in the interpretation 
of the subsurface temperatures during these events since the sensor depths 
are not accurately known.  Information on buoys that have drifted is listed
in the file taodata/hourly/drifters.doc. 


For a quick look at what is available within this directory
(taodata/currents), header information is available 
in files named "site.xHEAD", where "x" is either "t" (temperature), 
"v" (velocity) or "h" (humidity).
 
Files that are currently available and their size (in 512 byte blocks) 
are listed below:

95W.TEMPERATURE         104     95W.THEAD                 1
95W.VELOCITY            256     95W.VHEAD                 5
110W.TEMPERATURE       1317     110W.THEAD                2
110W.VELOCITY          1426     110W.VHEAD                8
124W.TEMPERATURE        145     124W.THEAD                2
124W.VELOCITY           214     124W.VHEAD                5
140W.HUMIDITY            15     140W.HHEAD                1
140W.TEMPERATURE        875     140W.THEAD                2
140W.VELOCITY          1107     140W.VHEAD                6
156E.HUMIDITY             6     156E.HHEAD                1
156E.TEMPERATURE        135     156E.THEAD                2
156E.VELOCITY            94     156E.VHEAD                3
165E.HUMIDITY             6     165E.HHEAD                1
165E.TEMPERATURE        624     165E.THEAD                2
165E.VELOCITY           760     165E.VHEAD                5
7N140W.TEMPERATURE|     193     7N140W.THEAD              2
7N140W.VELOCITY         305     7N140W.VHEAD              5
ISLANDS.WIND            397     ISLANDS.HEAD              3

DISK STORAGE REQUIREMENTS: File sizes are variable, with the 
maximum data file being 1426 blocks or 0.7 Megabytes. 
As of January 1994, there were 18 data files in this directory
requiring a total of 7983 blocks or 4.1 Megabytes. As data 
accumulates, these figures will increase in proportion.

Please send comments, questions or problems concerning the data to 
"freitag@pmel.noaa.gov".