Arctic Tidal Current Atlas from Moored Current Observations, Arctic Ocean, 1998-2018

• Main Authors: Baumann, Till, Polyakov, Igor, Padman, Laurie, Danielson, Seth, Fer, Ilker, Pnyushkov, Andrey, Williams, William, Janout, Markus
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2019
• Subjects: Arctic Ocean; Tides; Tidal Currents; Arctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a26m3340d; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A26M3340D

Tidal and wind-driven near-inertial currents play a vital role in the changing Arctic climate and the marine ecosystems. We compiled over 420 available moored current observations taken over the last two decades throughout the Arctic to assemble a pan-Arctic atlas of tidal band currents. The atlas contains different tidal current products designed for the analysis of tidal parameters from monthly to inter-annual time scales. On shorter time scales, wind-driven inertial currents cannot be analytically separated from dominant tidal constituents. Thus, we include 10-30 hour band-pass filtered currents, containing all semidiurnal and diurnal tidal constituents as well as wind-driven inertial currents for the analysis of high-frequency variability of ocean dynamics. This allows for a wide range of possible uses, including local case studies of baroclinic tidal currents, assessment of long-term trends in tidal band kinetic energy and Arctic-wide validation of ocean models. Furthermore, this atlas may be a valuable tool for industrial applications such as fisheries, navigation and offshore construction. Included in this dataset are individual mooring records, in addition to a zipped directory of all records.