Title | Short-term observations of daily currents on the continental shelf and slope off Port Edward, along the east coast of South Africa at location P5 (September 2010 - January 2011) |
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Project | Shelf Circulation Patterns off Port Edward |
Authors |
Gavin Louw Marcel van den Berg Tarron Lamont |
Publisher | Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (2020) |
Contributors |
Contact Person: Gavin Louw |
Abstract | Between 2005 and 2015, multiple short-term studies were conducted to determine the characteristics of moorings deployed in a region heavily influenced by the strong Agulhas Current, and to examine circulation patterns across the continental shelf and slope off Port Edward, along the east coast of South Africa. Three moorings (P1, P2, and P3) were deployed, just south of Port Edward at depths of 36m, 64m, and 162m, respectively, between September 2005 and September 2006, to measure currents and bottom temperatures across the inner shelf. A further three moorings (P4, P5, and P6) were deployed off Port Edward over the period September 2010 to June 2015, at depths of 217m, 1060m, and 2000m, to measure currents and sub-surface temperatures across the outer shelf and slope. Here we present processed magnitude and direction of daily currents throughout the water column (46.93 - 466.93 m and 544.33 - 994.33 m) from two ADCPs at location P5 (31.1272°S; 30.3369°E) on the outer shelf and slope off Port Edward, between 12 September 2010 and 27 January 2011. |
Methods | A sub-surface, upward-looking, 75 kHz RD Instruments Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) was configured with a bin size of 30 m and a blanking distance of 8 m, and deployed at location P5 (31.1272°S; 30.3369°E), on the outer shelf and slope of Port Edward, along the east coast of South Africa. The instrument measured hourly magnitude and direction throughout the water column (46.93 - 466.93 m and 544.33 - 994.33 m) between 12 September 2010 and 27 January 2011. These hourly values were corrected for magnetic declination, and then averaged to daily means for each depth bin. Only hourly values which showed ≥ 75 % good beam data were used, and daily values were only generated for days on which there were 75 % or more hourly readings. |
Data | |
Temporal extent | 12 Sep 2010 – 27 Jan 2011 |
Geographic extent |
Port Edward, South Africa
Lat: -31.1272 |
Vertical extent |
Max: -46.93 m Min: -994.33 m |
Keywords | ADCP, continental shelf, continental slope, currents, INDIAN OCEAN, moorings, Port Edward, velocity |
Related resources |
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