Near-surface velocity 15-day seasonal and annual climatology for the eastern Gulf of Mexico from drifter observations from 1979 to 2015

This dataset contains a seasonal and annual climatology of reconstructed near-surface current data of satellite-tracked 15 m drogued and undrogued drifters observations from February 1979 to June 2015 using the NOAA’s Global Drifter Program for the Gulf of Mexico. The data has a horizontal resolution of 0.125 deg x 0.125 deg. The annual climatological dataset incorporates more than 29 million, six-hour position/velocity estimates scattered throughout the world’s ice-free oceans, from February 1979 to June 2015. The seasonal means used the same data, however, they are 15-days climatological means for different seasons. About 56% of the available data points are from undrogued drifters. Near-surface velocity climatology for the global ocean from drifter observations is available under GRIIDC Unique Dataset Identifier (UDI) R4.x265.000:0013 (DOI: 10.7266/N7SJ1HN5). This dataset supports the publication: Drouin, K. L., Mariano, A. J., Ryan, E. H., & Laurindo, L. C. (2019). Lagrangian simulation of oil trajectories in the Florida Straits. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 140, 204–218. doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.01.031