Upper ocean currents and sea surface temperatures (SST) from Satellite-tracked drifting buoys (drifters) as part of the Global Drifter Program for Hawaii region 1980/02/01 - 2009/03/31 (NODC Accession 0063296)

Satellite-tracked drifting buoys ("drifters") collect measurements of upper ocean currents and sea surface temperatures (SST) around the world as part of the Global Drifter Program (GDP). Drifter locations are estimated from 16-20 satellite fixes per day, per drifter. The Drifter Data Assembly Center (DAC) at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) assembles these raw data, applies quality control procedures, and interpolates them via kriging to regular six-hour intervals.

This specific set of interpolated 6-hourly data represents the Hawaii sub-region of the GDP for all available drifters between 1980 to March 2009. Data are available as a single combined Matlab file as well as text format. One can acquire the most recent updates from http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dac/dacdata.html.