Surface-current variability statistics in the tidally dominated San Francisco Bay

Author

Hubbard, Max ; Garfield, Newell ; Barrick, Donald

Author_Institution

Romberg Tiburon Center for Environ. Studies, San Francisco State Univ., Tiburon, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

20-23 March 2011

Firstpage

138

Lastpage

141

Abstract

Drifter deployments were performed in the Central San Francisco Bay in order to evaluate performance of the high-resolution High-Frequency (HF) radars that are deployed there. The field study was designed to obtain drifter measurements in the radar coverage areas for comparison between the two measurements. Drifter radial velocities were computed along with statistics on surface-current subgrid-scale variability in the deployment areas. Removing the variability of the strong surface-currents from the estimate of instrument error gives a precise estimate of HF radar error in San Francisco Bay. An overall value of 8.45 cm/s for radar error is obtained by the comparison between surface drifters and the radar.

Keywords

ocean waves; oceanographic equipment; oceanographic regions; tides; Central San Francisco Bay; USA; drifter measurement method; drifter radial velocity; high-resolution high-frequency radar; surface-current subgrid-scale variability; surface-current variability statistics; tidal current; Correlation; Current measurement; Hafnium; Radar measurements; Sea measurements; Velocity measurement; HF radardrifter comparisons; surface-current subgrid-scale variabilty;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Current, Waves and Turbulence Measurements (CWTM), 2011 IEEE/OES 10th

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9285-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CWTM.2011.5759541

Filename

5759541