DISPRO drifter 72878 trackline

Two Argos drifters were released on 15 March 2007. These devices are described by Niiler et al. (1995) and validated as being reliable for tracking water-mass movements: they consist of a surface buoy with a GPS receiver and a transmission link towards the ARGOS system. A cable and a 5m holey sock are immersed at a depth 15 m. Their drift is representative of the surface currents in this layer. Theses two drifters were released at the same time at a distance of 100 m apart in the Blanchard race, and then tracked every 30 minutes over 13 days. They were separated by a distance of 54 km from each other at the time of their retrieval. The trajectories shown illustrate the variability of currents in the Cap de la Hague area.