ACM12 (Deep Basin Southwestern Boundary - German component)

This component of the Deep Basin experiment produced 30 current meter records from 6 moorings. From here you can

If you download any of the records you should read the note on file format.

mooringinstr depthinstr typedatesmetadatadownload
BW/333 230 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BW/333 475 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BW/333 680 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BW/333 885 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BM/334 230 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BM/334 470 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BM/334 870 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BM/334 1370 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BM/334 2140 meters Aanderaa RCM8 03 Jan 91 - 26 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 275 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 515 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 915 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 1415 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 2510 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
BE/335 3215 meters Aanderaa RCM8 04 Jan 91 - 25 Nov 92 view metadata download record
VW/336 470 meters Aanderaa RCM8 18 Mar 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VW/336 870 meters Aanderaa RCM8 10 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VW/336 2970 meters Aanderaa RCM8 10 Jan 91 - 06 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VW/336 3620 meters Aanderaa RCM8 10 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 720 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 1100 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 2900 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 3850 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 4150 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 4425 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
VE/338 4625 meters Aanderaa RCM8 12 Jan 91 - 05 Dec 92 view metadata download record
DBK/343 525 meters Aanderaa RCM5 04 Mar 91 - 19 Aug 91 view metadata download record
DBK/343 925 meters Aanderaa RCM5 13 Jan 91 - 20 Dec 91 view metadata download record
DBK/343 3025 meters Aanderaa RCM5 13 Jan 91 - 06 Dec 92 view metadata download record
DBK/343 3602 meters Aanderaa RCM5 13 Jan 91 - 06 Dec 92 view metadata download record

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Brief description of ACM12

The Deep Basin Experiment took place in and around the Brazil Basin, a region west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge stretching from the Ceara Rise near the equator in the north, to the Santos Plateau - Rio Grande Rise system near 30 deg S. A principal objective was to understand the mean circulation below the thermocline; the Brazil Basin was selected because it is a region of expected low eddy KE, a useful attribute in a program aimed at the mean flow.

Five current meter arrays were deployed at passages that connect the Brazil Basin to neighboring regions. Each array was in the water for approximately two years. We are concerned here with a line of 13 moorings that was installed jointly by IFM-Kiel and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, along the southwestern boundary of the basin. Six of the moorings were deployed by WHOI and were assigned the WOCE designation ACM3. The remaining 7 moorings (one of which was not recovered) were deployed by IFM-Kiel and comprise ACM12. The ACM12 moorings were installed during January 1991 and were recovered during December 1992.

The joint array extended in a line running from the edge of the continental shelf, southeastward across the Santos Plateau and the Vema Channel, to the Rio Grande Rise (see map). The goal was to measure inflow and outflow along the southern boundary of the Brazil Basin. For a detailed description of the purpose and rationale of this segment of the Deep Basin experiment, as well as data plots and statistics, see the joint technical report WHOI-94-07, IFM-Kiel 243. In addition, there is a relevant note in WOCE Newsletter #17, dated November 1994. See also

Zenk, W., K.G. Speer and N.G. Hogg (1993): Bathymetry at the Vema Sill. Deep-Sea Res. 40(9), 1925-1933.

Hogg, N.G., W.B. Owens, G. Siedler and W. Zenk (1996): Circulation in the deep Brazil Basin. In The South Atlantic (ed. G. Wefer, et al). Berlin: Springer. 644pp, pp249-260.

Zenk, W. and N.G.Hogg (1996): Warming trend in Antarctic Bottom Water flowing into the Brazil Basin. Deep-Sea Res. I, 43(9), 1461-1473.

Boebel, O., C. Schmid and W. Zenk (1997): Flow and recirculation of Antarctic Intermediate Water across the Rio Grande Rise. J. Geophys. Res., 102(C9), 967-986.

Hogg, N.G., and W. Zenk (1997): Long period changes in the bottom water flowing through Vema Channel. J. Geophys. Res., 102(C7), 15639-15646.

Mueller, T.J., Y. Ikeda, N. Zangenberg and L.V.Nonato (1998): Direct measurements of western boundary currents off Brazil between 20S and 28S. J. Geophys. Res., 103(C3), 5429-5437.

Hogg, N.G., and W.B. Owens (1999): Direct measurement of the deep circulation within the Brazil Basin. Deep-Sea Res. II, 46, 335-353.

Hogg, N.G., G. Siedler and W. Zenk (1999): Circulation and variability at the southern boundary of the Brazil Basin. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 29, 145-157.

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Format of the current records

These files have been compressed with the ZIP compression utility. After downloading them, you will need to expand them. On a PC, WinZip or Pkunzip will do the job. Other utilities are available for the Unix and Macintosh environments. After expansion, you will have ascii files in OSU's stranger format.

The stranger format begins with several lines of header information that are meant to be machine-readable. They contain a Fortran format specification that will be useful in reading the file, a pointer to the first line of data, and a description of the data. Each line of the current record itself contains the time of the sample, the values recorded, and a line count.

Please be aware that end-of-line in these files is a carriage-return plus line-feed (the PC convention). This means that in a Unix environment (where a single line-feed serves as end-of-line) you may want to remove the carriage-returns.

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