OceanScope Velocity Sections across the Slope Sea, Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea from the Explorer of the Seas

Royal Caribbean Group’s vessel Explorer of the Seas, part of its flagship cruise line Royal Caribbean International, supported for many years the operation of a hull-mounted Ocean Surveyor 38 kHz acoustic Doppler current profiler (OS38).  The OS38 measured velocity profiles to depths greater than 1000 m and sensor temperature (a proxy for near-surface ocean temperature). For a period between 2006 and 2010 the vessel operated along a route from New Jersey to Bermuda for more than 50 transits. Explorer of the Seas transited at roughly 20 Kts, so each section took less than 2 days to complete.  Of these sections, 16 are complete with velocity profiles and near-surface temperatures across the the Slope Sea, Gulf Stream and Sargasso Sea.  Data for these 16 complete sections are reported here in Matlab “.mat” format. 

The date of the middle of each section (“date”) is provided in datenum format. Horizontal velocities (m/s) are “U”, which is positive to the northeast (+45°) and is the direction normal to the ship route and “V”, which is positive to the northwest (+135°) and is along the direction of the ship route. Velocities are reported roughly every 3 km from 5-minute averages of the single ping data.  Temperature measured by the OS38 as a proxy for near-surface ocean temperature (“sfcT”) is in degrees Celsius.  Distance (“dst”) is kilometers from 40.75°N 74°W.  Depth (“depth”) is the center of each velocity bin and is given in meters. Empty values in the matrices are listed as 0. 

Dissemination of these data is funded by Royal Caribbean Group through the following project: "RCG-UM/RSMAS-WHOI Collaborative Ship-of-Opportunity Sampling OceanScope Evolutionary Reinvention 2023-2026."