PCM2 (Eastern Boundary Current)

This experiment produced 44 current meter records from 11 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. 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.

RSMAS Moorings

mooringinstr depthinstr typedatesmetadatadownload
OW (RSMAS 304) 106 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OW (RSMAS 304) 156 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OW (RSMAS 304) 305 meters Aanderaa RCM8 10 Aug 92 - 29 Dec 93 view metadata download record
OW (RSMAS 304) 605 meters Aanderaa RCM5 09 Aug 92 - 10 Apr 93 view metadata download record
ON (RSMAS 305) 102 meters VACM 10 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
ON (RSMAS 305) 152 meters VACM 10 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
ON (RSMAS 305) 301 meters Aanderaa RCM8 10 Aug 92 - 29 Jan 94 view metadata download record
ON (RSMAS 305) 601 meters Aanderaa RCM5 10 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OE (RSMAS 306) 107 meters VACM 11 Aug 92 - 07 Apr 93 view metadata download record
OE (RSMAS 306) 156 meters VACM 11 Aug 92 - 07 Apr 93 view metadata download record
OE (RSMAS 306) 300 meters Aanderaa RCM8 11 Aug 92 - 07 Apr 93 view metadata download record
OE (RSMAS 306) 600 meters Aanderaa RCM5 09 Aug 92 - 02 Oct 92 view metadata download record
OS (RSMAS 307) 106 meters VACM 10 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OS (RSMAS 307) 156 meters VACM 10 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OS (RSMAS 307) 305 meters Aanderaa RCM8 11 Aug 92 - 29 Dec 93 view metadata download record
OS (RSMAS 307) 605 meters Aanderaa RCM5 11 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OC (RSMAS 308) 98 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 29 Mar 94 view metadata download record
OC (RSMAS 308) 148 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OC (RSMAS 308) 298 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OC (RSMAS 308) 597 meters Aanderaa RCM5 09 Aug 92 - 20 Aug 94 view metadata download record
OC (RSMAS 308) 598 meters VACM 09 Aug 92 - 19 Aug 94 view metadata download record
PC (RSMAS 309) 150 meters Aanderaa RCM5 12 Aug 92 - 21 Aug 94 view metadata download record
PC (RSMAS 309) 300 meters Aanderaa RCM5 12 Aug 92 - 21 Aug 94 view metadata download record
PC (RSMAS 309) 600 meters Aanderaa RCM5 12 Aug 92 - 21 Aug 94 view metadata download record

WHOI Moorings

mooringinstr depthinstr typedatesmetadatadownload
IS (WHOI 929) 132 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IS (WHOI 929) 185 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IS (WHOI 929) 335 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IS (WHOI 929) 633 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IC (WHOI 930) 126 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IC (WHOI 930) 181 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IC (WHOI 930) 328 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IC (WHOI 930) 629 meters VACM 31 Jul 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 931) 115 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 08 Mar 93 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 931) 167 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 08 Mar 93 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 931) 318 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 08 Mar 93 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 931) 618 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 08 Mar 93 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 935) 118 meters VACM 09 Apr 93 - 13 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 935) 167 meters VACM 09 Apr 93 - 13 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 935) 318 meters VACM 09 Apr 93 - 13 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IN (WHOI 935) 619 meters VACM 09 Apr 93 - 13 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IW (WHOI 932) 120 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IW (WHOI 932) 172 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IW (WHOI 932) 322 meters VACM 01 Aug 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record
IW (WHOI 932) 623 meters VACM 10 Dec 92 - 12 Aug 94 view metadata download record

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Description of WOCE component PCM2

The Eastern Boundary Current study was a cooperative venture involving several West Coast and East Coast laboratories. The first EBC current meter moorings were installed in June 1992 by Oregon State University and the Naval Postgraduate School. These moorings were replaced in May 1993 and recovered in June 1994, ending this portion of EBC. The OSU/NPGS array was centered over the Northern California Slope at about 37.7N, 124.0W.

Two additional arrays were deployed in July and August 1992 and recovered in August 1994. One of these, an inshore array positioned over the continental slope just north of the OSU/NPGS moorings, produced 20 VACM recordings. It was installed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. The other, an offshore array in deeper water to the west, was installed by the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science; it contained both VACMs and Aanderaa current meters and produced 24 current records.

The latter two arrays (but not the initial OSU/NPGS array) have been designated PCM2. Data from PCM2 are available here. The OSU/NPGS data are available by request on a browsable CD from the OSU Buoy Group.

Related publications

Chereskin, T. (1995): Direct evidence for an Ekman balance in the California Current. J. Geophys. Res., 100(C9), 18261-18269.

Kelly, K.A., R.C.Beardsley, R. Limeburner, K.H. Brink, J.D. Paduan and T.K. Chereskin (1998): Variability of the near-surface eddy kinetic energy in the California Current based on altimetric, drifter and moored current meter data. J. Geophys. Res., 103(C6), 13067-13083.

Chereskin,T.K., M.Y.Morris, P.P.Niiler, P.M.Kosro, R.L.Smith, S.R.Ramp, C.A.Collins, and D.L.Musgrave (2000): Spatial and temporal characteristics of the mesoscale circulation of the California Current from eddy-resolving moored measurements. J. Geophys. Res. (in press).

Cornuelle, B.D., T.K. Chereskin, P.P. Niiler, M.Y. Morris, and D.L. Musgrave (2000): Observations and modeling of a California Undercurrent eddy. J. Geophys. Res. (in press).

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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.

You should know 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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