PCM11 (Samoan Passage Experiment)

This experiment produced 26 current meter records from 6 moorings. You can view metadata and 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 first to see where the moorings were. If you download any of the current meter records you should review the note on file format. From here you can also move up one level to the list of WOCE experiments.

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The six moorings were placed along a transect of the Passage (see map and vertical section). A total of 27 Aanderaa RCM8 current meters were employed, each measuring horizontal current and temperature, with the upper two meters on each mooring also measuring pressure. All instruments were recovered. There were some failures:

• Instrument 5872, the top meter of Mooring 2, experienced an electronic board failure after 5 days and stopped recording data. The data from this meter are not presented here.
• The pressure sensor on Instrument 4412 (2990 m on Mooring 1) showed abrupt depth changes several times. We believe these to be spurious, due to a sensor failure.
• The temperature sensor of Instrument 5856 (2970 m on Mooring 6) malfunctioned after 9 months.
• The compass of Instrument 7769 (4900 m on Mooring 3) failed its post-cruise calibration. It appears that the failure occured approximately one-fourth of the way through the experiment. Because the data are vector averages, both speed and direction are suspect.

The quality of the remaining records was excellent.

The experiment's PIs were R.D.Pillsbury of Oregon State University and Daniel L. Rudnick of University of Washington.

This disk also contains an electronic data report that describes the experiment in some detail and shows plots of the time series.

Related publications

Johnson, G. C., D. L. Rudnick and B. A. Taft (1994): Bottom water variability in the Samoa Passage. J. Mar. Res., 98, 6883-6893.

Pillsbury, R.D., D.L. Rudnick, J.M. Bottero, G. Pittock, D.C. Root, J. Simpkins and R.E. Still (1995): Current meter data from the Samoan Passage Experiment. Oregon State University College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Data Report #159, 125pp.

Roemmich, D., S. Hautala and D. Rudnick (1996): Northward abyssal transport through the Samoan Passage and adjacent regions. J. Geophys. Res., 101, 14039-14055.

Rudnick, D. L. (1997): Direct velocity measurements in the Samoan Passage. J. Geophys. Res., 102, 3293-3302.

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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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