This experiment produced 14 current meter records from 3 moorings. You can view metadata and download the records by clicking on links in the table below, where each record is identified by its depth and the name of the mooring. If you do download any of the current meter records you should review the note on file format. A brief description of the experiment is available here, and you may also want to look at a map of the array to see where the moorings were. From here you can also move up one level to the list of WOCE experiments.
(If you are interested in STACS-10, you may also want to look at current records from the non-WOCE STACS-11 array, which was located off the northeast coast of Brazil. Click here to reach STACS-11.)
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The STACS-10 records included here were produced by the third of
five consecutive current meter arrays that were deployed off Abaco
Island in the subropical western Atlantic
(see map). The five arrays covered a 7-year period beginning
in 1986 and were designed to provide insight into climate-relevant
flow transients in the western bounday current. Only the final two
mooring arrays, which span the period from June 1990 through June
1993, have been designated ACM1; however,we hope eventually to
include all five arrays in this database.
STACS is an acronym standing for Subtropical Atlantic Climate Studies.
The current meter data will be used together with ongoing cable-derived
transports of the Florida Current to estimate the volume and heat
transport of the thermohaline circulation at 26 deg N.
The moorings were instrumented with Aanderaa current meters and
VACMs. All of the meters measured current speed and direction, and
temperature. The top one or two meters at each mooring also measured
pressure.
Related publications
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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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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mooring instr depth instr type dates metadata download
Mooring 250
100 meters
VACM
08 Oct 88 - 23 Apr 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 250
400 meters
Aanderaa RCM
08 Oct 88 - 28 Feb 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 250
800 meters
VACM
08 Oct 88 - 28 Jun 89
view metadata
download record
Mooring 251
100 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 27 Apr 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 251
400 meters
Aanderaa RCM
06 Oct 88 - 23 Feb 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 251
1200 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 19 Jun 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 251
2400 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 12 Mar 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 251
3800 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 10 Mar 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
100 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 17 Jul 89
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
400 meters
Aanderaa RCM
06 Oct 88 - 16 Mar 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
800 meters
Aanderaa RCM
06 Oct 88 - 05 Mar 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
1200 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 20 Jun 90
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
2400 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 15 Oct 89
view metadata
download record
Mooring 252
3800 meters
VACM
06 Oct 88 - 10 Mar 90
view metadata
download record
Description of STACS-10
Zantopp R.J., T.N.Lee and W.E.Johns (1990): Moored current meter
observations east of Abaco, Bahamas, at 26.5 deg N (STACS-10 Array).
University of Miami RSMAS Technical Report 90-002, 10 pp.
Format of the current records