WATTS (a component of ACM1)

This experiment produced

• 30 current meter records
• 4 temperature-depth records

from 5 moorings. You can view metadata and/or download the records by clicking on links in the table below. A brief description of the experiment also is available. Each current meter record is identified in the table by its depth and the name of the mooring. You may want to look at a map of the array to see where the moorings were. If you download any of the records you should review the note on file format. From here you can also move up one level to the list of WOCE experiments.

All of the time series in this archive are filtered and have a time increment of 12 hours. The diurnal tides and all higher frequencies have been removed. The original unfiltered files may be available from the PI's.

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The overall goal of the Western Atlantic Thermohaline Transport Study (WATTS) was to resolve the meridional transports of volume and heat in western boundary currents and recirculating gyres east of Abaco Island (see map) using direct measurements with moored current meter arrays. These derived transport time series will be used - together with continuing measurements of Florida Current transports from calibrated cable voltages provided by the ongoing NOAA Atlantic Climate Change Program (ACCP) - to make the first simultaneous measurements of both the upper and lower layer parts of the inter-hemispheric thermohaline circulation. Collaboration with investigators from NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Atmospheric Laboratory and the ACCP provides hydrographic sections across the moored array, spatial water mass surveys, as well as ship time to deploy and recover the moorings. This program also coincides with the NSF-supported deep RAFOS float program Pathways of the Deep Western Boundary Current by Dr. K. leaman at the University of Miami, and with an array of electric field sensors and bottom pressure recorders deployed along the WATTS line by Drs. A. Chave and J. Filloux of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Scripps Institute of Oceanography, respectively.

This program also has the objective to preserve the continuity of western boundary time series begun by the STACS Program begun in 1986.

The moorings were instrumented with Aanderaa current meters, VACMs, VMCMs, and temperature-depth recorders. All of the current meters measured current speed and direction, and temperature. Several of the current meters also measured pressure.

Related publications

Zantopp R.J., T.N.Lee and W.E.Johns (1994): Moored current meter observations east of Abaco, Bahamas, at 26.5 deg N (WATTS Array). University of Miami RSMAS Technical Report 93-006, 77 pp.

Lee, T.N., W.E. Johns, R.J. Zantopp and E.R. Fillenbaum (1996): Moored observations of Western Boundary Current variability and thermocline circulation at 26.5N in the subtropical North Atlantic. J. Phys. Oceanog., 26(6), 962-983.

Johns, W.E., T.N. Lee, R.J. Zantopp and E. Fillenbaum (1997): Updated transatlantic heat flux at 26.5N. International WOCE Newsletter, 27, 15-22.

Fillenbaum, E.R., T.N. Lee, W.E. Johns and R.J. Zantopp (1997): Meridional heat transport variability at 26.5N in the North Atlantic. J. Phys. Oceanog., 27(1), 153-174.

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netCDF is a self-documenting format that can be accessed by a variety of software tools. We have included here a Matlab script that can be used to read netCDF current records in an environment that contains the Matlab/netCDF interface created by CSIRO. You can Click here to learn more about netCDF.

We are aware that users who are unfamiliar with netCDF or who lack software to deal with it, may find the netCDF format more a deterrent than an aid to effective use of the data. We have included in this CDROM set a second disk that is identical to this one, except that the current meter records have OSU's "Stranger" format. The Stranger format, like netCDF, is self-documenting but utilizes the ASCII code. It is easily readable by both humans and computers; you may find it preferable to netCDF.

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