Accurate Ocean Current Direction Measurements Near the Magnetic Poles

• Main Author: James M. Hamilton
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canadian Archipelago
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.551.1283; http://www2.mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/ocean/seaice/Publications/hamilton01.pdf

Ocean current direction measurements through the Canadian archipelago have required development of a strategy that uses specialised instrumentation to cope with the small horizontal component of the earth's magnetic field in this region. Subsurface instrumented moorings collecting bihourly data through yearlong deployments, use precision heading reference systems to measure the orientation of Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers mounted in streamlined buoyancy packages. Current directions are then corrected for the significant fluctuations in magnetic declination occurring near the magnetic pole, using data from a nearby geomagnetic observatory. Concurrent observations of current speed and direction from independent moored measurement systems are shown to be in good agreement. KEY WORDS: current direction measurement, low magnetic field, polar, Arctic mooring instrumentation, magnetic pole