Global Drifter Program drifter subset from R/V Thomas G. Thompson deployment in November 2021

The 10 drifters available in this dataset are Surface Velocity Program (SVP) or SVPB (SVP-Barometer) drifter types (e.g. Centurioni, 2018), from the Global Drifter Program (Niiler, 2001, Centurioni et al., 2019). The drifters were deployed on the R/V Thompson in November 2021. The dataset provides latitude, longitude, temperature, corrected near-surface speed and velocity components, and a drogue indicator (1 on, 0 off). The speed and velocity components are at 15-m drogue-depth. The 6-hourly drifter velocity were interpolated as described in Hansen and Poulain (1996) were corrected for wind slip for drogued and undrogued drifters as described in Niiler et al. (1995) and Pazan and Niiler (2021). Lagrangian properties are degraded when the drogue is off due to increased slip caused by wind and waves.

References:

Niiler, P. P., A. Sybrandy, K. Bi, P. M. Poulain, and D. Bitterman (1995), Measurements of the water-following capability of holey-sock and TRISTAR drifters, Deep-Sea Research 1, 42, 1951-1964.

Pazan, S. E., and P. P. Niiler (2001), Recovery of near-surface velocity from undrogued drifters, J Atmos Ocean Tech, 18(3), 476-489.

Hansen, D. V., and P. M. Poulain (1996), Quality control and interpolations of WOCE-TOGA drifter data, J Atmos Ocean Tech, 13(4), 900-909.

Centurioni, L. R. (2018), Drifter Technology and Impacts for Sea Surface Temperature, Sea-Level Pressure, and Ocean Circulation Studies, in Observing the Oceans in Real Time, edited by R. Venkatesan, A. Tandon, E. D'Asaro and M. A. Atmanand, pp. 37-57, Springer International Publishing, Cham.

Centurioni, L. R., et al. (2019), Global in situ Observations of Essential Climate and Ocean Variables at the Air–Sea Interface, Frontiers in Marine Science, 6(419).

Niiler, P. P. (2001), The world ocean surface circulation, in Ocean Circulation and Climate, edited by G. Siedler, J. Church and J. Gould, pp. 193-204, Academic Press.