DUCK94 Nearshore Field Experiment
The DUCK94 nearshore field experiment was designed to apply recent advances
in measurement technology to the study of nearshore processes in preparation
for the SANDYDUCK experiment in 1997. It was primarily supported by the
Office of Naval Research's (ONR) Coastal Sciences Program and conducted at the US
Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility at Duck, NC (figure coming
soon). The scientific themes for DUCK94 include wave shoaling, nearshore
circulation, boundary layers, swash processes, small scale sediments and
topography. An experiment overview and summaries of the experimental plans
of DUCK94 investigators can be found in Birkemier (1994). --From Haus, et.
al. (1995).
DESCRIPTION OF DATA
As part of DUCK94, the RSMAS OSCR radar system was deployed during October
1994. The system operated in High Frequency (HF) mode at 25.4 MHz, and
mapped coastal ocean currents over a 25 km X 44 km domain every twenty
minutes with a horizontal resoultion of 1.2 km at 700 grid points (small
dark circles). The surface current data was augmented with current meter
moorings and repeat Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) transects, as
part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Coastal Ocean Processes
(CoOp) experiment. The current meter moorings were equipped with vector
measuring current meters (VMCM) which sampled currents at four minute
intervals in 20 m and 25 m depths. The ADCP transects were taken with a
ship-mounted 1.2 MHz narrow band RDI instrument. Transects were taken daily
from 7 October 94 to 30 October 94, except for a 7 day period between 10
October 94 and 17 October 94, and a 3 day period between 23 October 94 and
26 October 94, when conditions were unfavorable for data collection. The
collected data is shown in a table below. The northern transect is named
transect 3, a middle transect is transect 3.5, and southern transect is
transect 4.
ADCP DATA |
Transect | No. of Staions | Total Observations |
3 | 8 | 30 |
3.5 | 5 | 21 |
4 | 15 (11 in OSCR domain) | 174 |