Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 1192053
Metadata Summary
Problem Reports
Data Access Policy
Narrative Documents
Project Information
Data Activity or Cruise Information
Fixed Station Information
BODC Quality Flags
SeaDataNet Quality Flags
Metadata Summary
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Problem Reports
No Problem Report Found in the Database
Data Access Policy
Open Data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
You must always use the following attribution statement to acknowledge the source of the information: "Contains data supplied by Natural Environment Research Council."
Narrative Documents
Kongsberg EM120 Multibeam Echosounder
The EM120 is a low frequency (12 kHz) multibeam echosounder with full ocean depth capability designed for bathymetric surveys. It measures water depth by monitoring the travel time of an acoustic signal that is transmitted from the ship, reflected off the seabed and received back at the ship.
The main system units of the EM120 are transducer arrays (separate for reception and transmission), preamplifier unit, transceiver unit and operator unit. Sub-bottom profiling capability is an optional extra. For both transmit and receive arrays standard beamwidth is 1° or 2°, and 4° beamwidth is available for the receive array.
The system has 191 beams with pointing angles automatically adjusted according to achievable coverage or operator defined limits. The beam spacing is normally equidistant, corresponding to 1% of depth at 90° angular coverage, 2% at 120° and 3% at 140°. The transmit fan is split into several individual sectors, each of which is corrected independently for vessel roll, pitch and yaw, which places all soundings on a "best fit" to a line perpendicular to the survey line.
The EM120 supersedes the EM12 and was itself superseded by the EM122 in 2008.
Specifications
| Frequency | 12 kHz |
| Maximum ping rate | 5 Hz |
| Range sampling rate | 2 kHz |
| Swath coverage sector | up to 150° |
| Swath width | up to 5.5 x water depth |
| Depth resolution | 10 to 40 cm |
| Depth range | 20 to 11,000 m |
| Pulse length | 2, 5 and 15 ms |
| Number of beams | 191 |
| Beam width | 1° x 1° |
| Beam spacing (at angular coverage) | 1% of depth at 90° |
Further details can be found in the manufacturer's specification sheet.
Trimble Applanix Position and Orientation Systems for Marine Vessels (POSMV)
The Position and Orientation Systems for Marine Vessels (POSMV) is a real time kinematic (RTK) and differential global positioning system (DGPS) receiver for marine navigation. It includes an inertial system that provides platform attitude information. The instrument provides accurate location, heading, velocity, attitude, heave, acceleration and angular rate measurements.
There are three models of Applanix POSMV, the POS MV 320, POS MV Elite and the POS MV WaveMaster. POS MV 320 and POS MV WaveMaster are designed for use with multibeam sonar systems, enabling adherence to IHO (International Hydrographic Survey) standards on sonar swath widths of greater than ± 75 degrees under all dynamic conditions. The POS MV Elite offers true heading accuracy without the need for dual GPS installation and has the highest degree of accuracy in motion measurement for marine applications.
Specifications
POS MV 320
| Componenet | DGPS | RTK | GPS Outage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | 0.5 - 2 m 1 | 0.02 - 0.10 m 1 | <2.5 m for 30 seconds outages, <6 m for 60 seconds outages |
| Roll and Pitch | 0.020° | 0.010° | 0.020° |
| True Heading | 0.020° with 2 m baseline 0.010° with 4 m baseline | - | Drift <1° per hour (negligible for outages <60 seconds) |
| Heave | 5 cm or 5% 2 | 5 cm or 5% 2 | 5 cm or 5% 2 |
POS MV WaveMaster
| Accuracy | DGPS | RTK | GPS Outage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | 0.5 - 2 m 1 | 0.02 - 0.10 m 1 | <3 m for 30 seconds outages, <10 m for 60 seconds outages |
| Roll and Pitch | 0.030° | 0.020° | 0.040° |
| True Heading | 0.030° with 2 m baseline | - | Drift <2° per hour |
| Heave | 5 cm or 5% 2 | 5 cm or 5% 2 | 5 cm or 5% 2 |
POS MV Elite
| Accuracy | DGPS | RTK | GPS Outage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | 0.5 - 2 m 1 | 0.02 - 0.10 m 1 | <1.5 m for 60 seconds outages DGPS, <0.5 m for 60 seconds outage RTK |
| Roll and Pitch | 0.005° | 0.005° | 0.005° |
| True Heading | 0.025° | 0.025° | Drift <0.1° per hour (negligible for outages <60 seconds) |
| Heave | 3.5 cm or 3.5% 2 | 3.5 cm or 3.5% 2 | 3.5 cm or 3.5% 2 |
1 One Sigma, depending on quality of differential corrections
2 Whichever is greater, for periods of 20 seconds or less
Further details can be found in the manufacturer's specification sheet.
JC064 Swath Bathymetry data processing
Originator's processing
RRS James Cook's Kongsberg EM120 swath system (serial number 203) was used. A historical sound velocity profile derived from mooring data was used rather than gathering a currect sound velocity profile using the CTD or sound velocity profiler. Time limitations meant that no checks were made to the calibration of the swath bathymetry system before the surveys were carried out.
Eastern Boundary Glider site
The water depth was approximately 1000m. To maximise data coverage the beam width was set to ±70°, giving a swath width of 4000 to 5000m. The survey speed was initially 6 knots but increased to 8 then 9 knots on the last line to meet a time deadline. The sea conditions were calm. Additional data were incorporated from a line when the ship made passage to the area earlier in the day. No tidal corrections was applied to the data as it was suggested that tidal variations in this area are minimal, particularly when compared with the depth of the water.
Enough suitable data were collected to check the pitch and roll alignment of the EM120. For a pitch trench between lines 018 and 020, the Caris calibration module showed no pitch error. For the roll calibration, overlapping data between lines 024 and 026 were used. The Caris calibration module identified a roll error of +0.86°. However, when applied this estimate was deemed to great. A manual adjustment of the error to +0.30° gave the best fit. The data were manually cleaned using Caris' swath editor. Spikes in the data were marked as rejected, taking care to not remove real features. The depths were produced from an Uncertainty BASE surface. A geo-referenced TIFF image file was produced along with a gridded xy-depth text file, with depths at 25m intervals.
MAR0
A dedicated survey at MAR0 was not performed and the data from the EM120 running continuously at the mooring site was used. As the vessel was either sat on station under DP control or steaming slowly during mooring operations there was a large number of overlapping data points. These were cleaned using swath and TPU order 2 filters, and some manual editing in the swath editor. A CUBE surface was used as its hypothesis as this was found to generate the most accurate surface from the overlapping data points. A geo-referenced TIFF image file was produced along with a gridded xy-depth text file.
BODC processing
The data were received in ASCII format in 2 files covering the MAR0 mooring site and the operational area of the SeaGlider Bellatrix within the Eastern Boundary Array of the RAPIDMOC mooring array.
Once the submitted data files are safely archived, the data undergo reformatting and banking procedures:
- The data files are transferred into a common format, a NetCDF subset.
- Standard parameter codes are assigned that accurately describe the data (see Parameter mapping section below).
- Unit conversions are applied, if necessary, so that units are standardised (see Parameter mapping section below).
- The data are screened visually and any spikes or instrument malfunctions can be clearly labelled with quality control flags.
- Comprehensive documentation is prepared describing the collection, processing and quality of each data series.
- Detailed metadata and documents are loaded to the database and linked to each series so that the information is readily available to future users.
Parameter Mapping
The following describes the parameters contained in the originator's files and their mapping to BODC parameter codes.
| Identifier | Unit | Definition | BODC Parameter code | Description | Unit | Unit conversion | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| lat | o | Latitude north | ALATGP01 | Latitude north (WGS84) by unspecified GPS system | o | - | Transferred |
| lon | o | Longitude west | ALONGP01 | Longitude east (WGS84) by unspecified GPS system | o | *-1 | Transferred |
| depth | m | Depth | MBANZZ01 | Sea-floor depth (below instantaneous sea level){bathymetric depth} in the water column by echo sounder | m | - | Transferred |
Project Information
Monitoring the Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5N (RAPIDMOC)
Scientific Rationale
There is a northward transport of heat throughout the Atlantic, reaching a maximum of 1.3PW (25% of the global heat flux) around 24.5°N. The heat transport is a balance of the northward flux of a warm Gulf Stream, and a southward flux of cooler thermocline and cold North Atlantic Deep Water that is known as the meridional overturning circulation (MOC). As a consequence of the MOC northwest Europe enjoys a mild climate for its latitude: however abrupt rearrangement of the Atlantic Circulation has been shown in climate models and in palaeoclimate records to be responsible for a cooling of European climate of between 5-10°C. A principal objective of the RAPID programme is the development of a pre-operational prototype system that will continuously observe the strength and structure of the MOC. An initiative has been formed to fulfill this objective and consists of three interlinked projects:
- A mooring array spanning the Atlantic at 26.5°N to measure the southward branch of the MOC (Hirschi et al., 2003 and Baehr et al., 2004).
- Additional moorings deployed in the western boundary along 26.5°N (by Prof. Bill Johns, University of Miami) to resolve transport in the Deep Western Boundary Current (Bryden et al., 2005). These moorings allow surface-to-bottom density profiles along the western boundary, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and eastern boundary to be observed. As a result, the transatlantic pressure gradient can be continuously measured.
- Monitoring of the northward branch of the MOC using submarine telephone cables in the Florida Straits (Baringer et al., 2001) led by Dr Molly Baringer (NOAA/AOML/PHOD).
The entire monitoring array system created by the three projects will be recovered and redeployed annually until 2008 under RAPID funding. From 2008 until 2014 the array will continue to be serviced annually under RAPID-WATCH funding.
The array will be focussed on three regions, the Eastern Boundary (EB), the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR) and the Western Boundary (WB). The geographical extent of these regions are as follows:
- Eastern Boundary (EB) array defined as a box with the south-east corner at 23.5°N, 25.5°W and the north-west corner at 29.0°N, 12.0°W
- Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR) array defined as a box with the south-east corner at 23.0°N, 52.1°W and the north-west corner at 26.5°N, 40.0°W
- Western Boundary (WB) array defined as a box with the south-east corner at 26.0°N, 77.5°W and the north-west corner at 27.5°N, 69.5°W
References
Baehr, J., Hirschi, J., Beismann, J.O. and Marotzke, J. (2004) Monitoring the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic: A model-based array design study. Journal of Marine Research, Volume 62, No 3, pp 283-312.
Baringer, M.O'N. and Larsen, J.C. (2001) Sixteen years of Florida Current transport at 27N Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 28, No 16, pp3179-3182
Bryden, H.L., Johns, W.E. and Saunders, P.M. (2005) Deep Western Boundary Current East of Abaco: Mean structure and transport. Journal of Marine Research, Volume 63, No 1, pp 35-57.
Hirschi, J., Baehr, J., Marotzke J., Stark J., Cunningham S.A. and Beismann J.O. (2003) A monitoring design for the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 30, No 7, article number 1413 (DOI 10.1029/2002GL016776)
RAPID- Will the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation Halt? (RAPID-WATCH)
RAPID-WATCH (2007-2014) is a continuation programme of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Rapid Climate Change (RAPID) programme. It aims to deliver a robust and scientifically credible assessment of the risk to the climate of UK and Europe arising from a rapid change in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). The programme will also assess the need for a long-term observing system that could detect major MOC changes, narrow uncertainty in projections of future change, and possibly be the start of an 'early warning' prediction system.
The effort to design a system to continuously monitor the strength and structure of the North Atlantic MOC is being matched by comparative funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) for the existing collaborations started during RAPID for the observational arrays.
Scientific Objectives
- To deliver a decade-long time series (2004-2014) of calibrated and quality-controlled measurements of the Atlantic MOC from the RAPID-WATCH arrays.
- To exploit the data from the RAPID-WATCH arrays and elsewhere to determine and interpret recent changes in the Atlantic MOC, assess the risk of rapid climate change, and investigate the potential for predictions of the MOC and its impacts on climate.
This work will be carried out in collaboration with the Hadley Centre in the UK and through international partnerships.
Mooring Arrays
The RAPID-WATCH arrays are the existing 26°N MOC observing system array (RAPIDMOC) and the WAVE array that monitors the Deep Western Boundary Current. The data from these arrays will work towards meeting the first scientific objective.
The RAPIDMOC array consists of moorings focused in three geographical regions (sub-arrays) along 26.5° N: Eastern Boundary, Mid-Atlantic Ridge and Western Boundary. The Western Boundary sub-array has moorings managed by both the UK and US scientists. The other sub-arrays are solely led by the UK scientists. The lead PI is Dr Stuart Cunningham of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK.
The WAVE array consists of one line of moorings off Halifax, Nova Scotia. The line will be serviced in partnership with the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO), Halifax, Canada. The lead PI is Dr Chris Hughes of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, UK.
All arrays will be serviced (recovered and redeployed) either on an annual or biennial basis using Research Vessels from the UK, US and Canada.
Modelling Projects
The second scientific objective will be addressed through numerical modelling studies designed to answer four questions:
- How can we exploit data from the RAPID-WATCH arrays to obtain estimates of the MOC and related variables?
- What do the observations from the RAPID-WATCH arrays and other sources tell us about the nature and causes of recent changes in the Atlantic Ocean?
- What are the implications of RAPID-WATCH array data and other recent observations for estimates of the risk due to rapid change in the MOC?
- Could we use RAPID-WATCH and other observations to help predict future changes in the MOC and climate?
Data Activity or Cruise Information
Cruise
| Cruise Name | JC064 |
| Departure Date | 2011-09-10 |
| Arrival Date | 2011-10-09 |
| Principal Scientist(s) | Stuart A Cunningham (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) |
| Ship | RRS James Cook |
Complete Cruise Metadata Report is available here
Fixed Station Information
No Fixed Station Information held for the Series
BODC Quality Control Flags
The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| Blank | Unqualified |
| < | Below detection limit |
| > | In excess of quoted value |
| A | Taxonomic flag for affinis (aff.) |
| B | Beginning of CTD Down/Up Cast |
| C | Taxonomic flag for confer (cf.) |
| D | Thermometric depth |
| E | End of CTD Down/Up Cast |
| G | Non-taxonomic biological characteristic uncertainty |
| H | Extrapolated value |
| I | Taxonomic flag for single species (sp.) |
| K | Improbable value - unknown quality control source |
| L | Improbable value - originator's quality control |
| M | Improbable value - BODC quality control |
| N | Null value |
| O | Improbable value - user quality control |
| P | Trace/calm |
| Q | Indeterminate |
| R | Replacement value |
| S | Estimated value |
| T | Interpolated value |
| U | Uncalibrated |
| W | Control value |
| X | Excessive difference |
SeaDataNet Quality Control Flags
The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | no quality control |
| 1 | good value |
| 2 | probably good value |
| 3 | probably bad value |
| 4 | bad value |
| 5 | changed value |
| 6 | value below detection |
| 7 | value in excess |
| 8 | interpolated value |
| 9 | missing value |
| A | value phenomenon uncertain |
| B | nominal value |
| Q | value below limit of quantification |
