Ice-ocean environmental buoy program : archived data processing and graphical results from April 1992 through November 1998

Abstract

Between 1992 and 1998, three Ice-Ocean Environmental Buoys (IOEBs) were deployed a total of six times on multiyear pack ice in the Arctic Ocean. The processing scheme for the telemetered environmental data, as well as the individual IOEBs and field operations, are described, and the processed data are presented in graphical form. The IOEB Archived Data Processing (IADP) processing scheme was conceived specifically to remove noise in data telemetered from IOEBs caused by errors in network or satellite communications, and to calibrate to absolute values. The location data consists of Argos quality 2 or 3 positions from each platform transmit terminal (PTT) on a particular IOEB, which are subsequently screened, interpolated, and combined with similarly processed locations from the other PTT, and further smoothed with a 6-hr triangular filter to produce an hourly timeseries with a standard error estimated to be -150 m. The sensor data is prefiltered, combined, adjusted for buoy drift, and screened with a Gaussian first difference filter to produce unevenly spaced timeseries of each variable measured by the IOEB. Every variable is output to a unique file per year, per buoy consisting of a two-column ACSII timeseries. Drift and sensor data are presented from the 1992 Transpolar Drift IOEB which operated for only 4 months, IOEB-1 which drifted with the Beaufort Gyre in a large anticyclonic circle from April 1992 to November 1998, and IOEB-2 which drifted through the Fram Strait in 9 months in 1994, and 1997-98 was redeployed concurrently with SHEBA at a distance 50 km from the main camp.