Current meter records from the Gulf of Mexico Physical Oceanography Program

Click here to download zip archives that contain the current meter records, or here to move up one level. To see metadata and statistics click on the links in the rightmost column below. Maps showing mooring locations are available here.

These data were gathered by SAIC under contract with the US Minerals Management Service. They are shown below in two tables: one for records from the Western Gulf, and the other showing records from the Eastern Gulf. Although our focus in this repository is on deep water currents we have followed our usual practice of including the entire array when some of its moorings are in deep water and some are in shallow water.

These moorings were in place during succesive short deployments over a period of 3 years. Where possible, we have joined shorter records to make longer ones. The data originally were recorded with time increments of 15, 20, and 30 minutes, in no apparent pattern. In many cases the time series were exceptionally noisy. Because of the noise and the inconsistant time increment we have filtered all the series and subsampled to one point per hour. The filter is a low-pass cosine-Lanczos filter that spans 2 days of data. This filter effectively removes frequencies higher than 12 cycles per day and passes frequencies lower than 9 cycles per day unattenuated.

We have included here most though not all of the current meter records from this experiment. Some were too short to meet our criteria for inclusion, and some were too noisy or otherwise of poor quality.