Radar measurements collected during the Submesoscale Processes and Lagrangian Analysis on the Shelf (SPLASH) experiment aboard R/V Walton Smith cruise WS17107 near the Taylor Energy oil leak site in the Gulf of Mexico from 2017-04-19 to 2017-04-21

This dataset reports near-surface currents and sea surface roughness derived from X-band radar aboard R/V Walton Smith cruise WS17107 near the Taylor Energy oil leak site, Gulf of Mexico from 2017-04-19 to 2017-04-21. This data was collected during the CARTHE II sponsored Submesoscale Processes and LAgrangian Analysis on the SHelf (SPLASH) experiment in the northern Gulf of Mexico. It was obtained from a coherent-on-receive marine X-band (9.5 GHz) radar (Braun et al., 2008), developed at Helmholtz Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG), Germany. The data includes backscatter images collected every 2-min that can be used to identify surface features such as fronts. The data also includes current velocity maps obtained by processing series of these images using 3-D Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) and overlays of the current maps over averaged backscatter images. This data was collected in the region of the abandoned Taylor Energy platform in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The data includes radar backscatter images as well as derived surface velocity maps. This dataset supports the publication: Androulidakis, Y., Kourafalou, V., Özgökmen, T., Garcia‐Pineda, O., Lund, B., Le Hénaff, M., Hu, C., Haus, B.K., Novelli, G., Guigand, C. and Kang, H., 2018. Influence of River‐Induced Fronts on Hydrocarbon Transport: A Multiplatform Observational Study. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. doi:10.1029/2017jc013514