Vitiaz Strait Transport (PCM15)

This experiment produced 35 current meter records from 5 moorings, each of which was occupied twice. 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.

Note that each of the 5 moorings was occupied twice - Phases 1 and 2. In some cases the Phase 1 and Phase 2 current records are nearly (but not quite) contiguous. In others the gap between the two deployments is significant.

mooringinstr depthinstr typedatesmetadatadownload
M1, Phase 1 40 meters Endeco 174 26 Feb 92 - 20 May 92 view metadata download record
M1, Phase 1 148 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 15 Jun 92 view metadata download record
M1, Phase 1 400 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 16 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M1, Phase 2 40 meters Endeco 174 27 Jul 92 - 15 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M1, Phase 2 121 meters Aanderaa RCM 25 Jul 92 - 13 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M1, Phase 2 400 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 03 Dec 92 view metadata download record
M2, Phase 2 40 meters Endeco 174 26 Jul 92 - 14 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M2, Phase 2 132 meters Aanderaa RCM 24 Jul 92 - 11 Feb 93 view metadata download record
M2, Phase 2 227 meters Aanderaa RCM 24 Jul 92 - 18 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M2, Phase 2 399 meters Aanderaa RCM 24 Jul 92 - 04 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M2, Phase 2 600 meters Aanderaa RCM 24 Jul 92 - 11 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 1 134 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 16 Jun 92 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 1 224 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 14 Jun 92 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 1 405 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 03 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 1 654 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 12 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 1 801 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 03 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 40 meters Endeco 174 28 Jul 92 - 14 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 125 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 10 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 229 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 11 Feb 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 399 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 16 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 598 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 17 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M3, Phase 2 794 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 11 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 1 39 meters Endeco 174 26 Feb 92 - 19 May 92 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 1 120 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 08 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 1 600 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 14 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 2 118 meters Aanderaa RCM 25 Jul 92 - 07 Feb 93 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 2 238 meters Aanderaa RCM 29 Jul 92 - 13 Feb 93 view metadata download record
M4, Phase 2 389 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Jul 92 - 14 Mar 93 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 1 36 meters Endeco 174 26 Feb 92 - 20 May 92 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 1 153 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 11 Jun 92 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 1 400 meters Aanderaa RCM 26 Feb 92 - 16 Jul 92 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 2 31 meters Endeco 174 28 Jul 92 - 13 Apr 93 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 2 148 meters Aanderaa RCM 01 Aug 92 - 24 Feb 93 view metadata download record
M5, Phase 2 400 meters Aanderaa RCM 25 Jul 92 - 30 Nov 92 view metadata download record

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Description of WOCE component PCM15

Vitiaz Strait acts as a choke point for a western boundary current that carries water equatorward along the northeastern coast of New Guinea. This is a significant current, with transports that sometimes approach 20 sv. The present experiment was designed to extend the spatial and temporal resolution of earlier measurements in the strait that established the existence and strength of this current.

PCM15 went forward in two phases. The first phase began in February 1992; Aanderaa and Endeco current meters were installed on 5 moorings spanning the Vitiaz Strait (see map). This produced 14 useful current records of varying lengths. During the second phase, which began in July 1992, the moorings were revisited and replaced. The second set of instruments was recovered during April 1993, and produced 21 useful current records.

Some results of an analysis of the data can be found in

Murray, S., E. Lindstrom, J. Kindle and E. Weeks (1995): Transport through the Vitiaz Strait. WOCE Notes, 7(1), 21-23.

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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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