Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoy 18

Time-series data from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Autonomous Ocean Flux Buoy (AOFB) #18. This buoy was deployed at the 2009 North Pole Environmental Observatory (NPEO) ice camp on 12 April 2009. The buoy drifted across the Eurasian Basins, exited the Arctic Ocean through Fram Strait, and continued southward along the continental slope off of Greenland. The time series ended on 6 November 2009. The buoy measured velocity, temperature, salinity, and the vertical turbulent fluxes of heat, salt, and momentum in the ocean surface mixed layer with a custom-built sensor package about 5 m below the ice-ocean interface. The buoy also measured vertical profiles of ocean currents with an RD instruments 600 kHz Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. Additional information about the NPS AOFB program, including real-time data from active buoys, is available at: http://www.oc.nps.edu/~stanton/fluxbuoy The flux package data set is provided in Matlab and NetCDF file formats. Each file contains the following variables: time - Time in YYYDDD format from 1900 (days) depth - Depth from surface of ice cover, positive up (m) latitude - Latitude (degrees) longitude - Longitude (degrees) u - Velocity, x-component (m/s) v - Velocity, y-component (m/s) T - Temperature (deg C) S - Salinity (psu) uw - Kinematic Vertical Momentum Flux, x-component (m/s)^2 vw - Kinematic Vertical Momentum Flux, y-component (m/s)^2 wT - Kinematic Vertical Heat Flux (K m/s) wS - Vertical Salt Flux (psu m/s) q2 - Fluctuation Kinetic Energy (m/s)^2 Velocities are reported in the instrument coordinate system of the flux package acoustic travel-time current meter. The fluctuation kinetic energy variable is useful for identifying time periods when the buoy is in open water and flux estimates are contaminated by surface-wave motions.