PCM3 (East Australia Current)

This experiment produced 41 current meter records from 12 moorings. You can view metadata and download the records by clicking on links in the tables below. Each current meter record is identified in the tables by its depth and the name of the mooring. A brief description of the experiment is available, and you can download a data report in PDF format. You may want to look at a map of the array 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.

If you are interested in low-pass filtered versions of these current records you can click here to download a compressed archive that contains them all.

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The PCM3 array (see map) was designed with the aim of measuring the full depth transport and structure of the East Australia Current for a period of two years. The array was deployed in November 1991, serviced in September 1992 and recovered in March 1994. The longest records are 22 months in length. The moorings were located at 30°S and spanned the Australian shelf break and slope out to 154°30"S. They were set in water depths of 95, 200, 700, 2050, 4400 and 4500m. Aanderaa meter depths were nominally 30, 50, 150, 250, 300, 400, 600, 1000, 1500, 2500 and 3500m. Data return was fair from the first deployment and poor from the second. Large mooring knockdowns punctuate the records taken over the abyssal slope.

Upward-looking ADCPs covering the upper 300 meters of the water column were present on the 2050m and 4400m moorings. The ADCPs on the 4400m mooring failed, but those on the 2050m mooring returned good data. (The ADCP data were not supplied to CMDAC and are not present here.)

A PCM3 data report is available in PDF format. See also

Chiswell, S.M., J. Toole and J. Church (1997): Transports across the Tasman Sea from WOCE repeat sections: the East Australian Current 1990-94. New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, 31(4), 469-475.

Mata, M.M., M. Tonczak, S. Wijffels and J. Church (1998): East Australian Current volume transports from the PCM3 array. International WOCE Newsletter, 32, 18-19.

Mata, M.M. and M. Tomczak (2000): East Australian Current volume transports at 30S: estimates from the World Ocean Circulation Experiment hydrographic sections PR11/P6 and PCM3 current meter array. J. Geophys. Res., 105(C12), 28509-28526.

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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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