Fisheries Oceanography in Coastal Alabama (FOCAL) Mooring Data (Fall 2015)

The oceanographic community routinely collects time-series data of hydrographic properties and water current velocity of the marine environment. Such data are essential for establishing baseline characteristics of marine and estuarine ecosystems. These data are from a small coastal ocean observing system 25 kilometers southwest of the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama (30.0902°N, 88.2116°W), that the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) has been operating. The overarching goal of the research was to identify and determine the kinematic and dynamic transport processes that govern the distribution, dispersion, dilution, and fate of oil-derived substances in Alabama's coastal waters. As such, the project examined the flow field characteristics on the Alabama shelf from the Eulerian perspective. The data were collected between 2015-07-28 and 2015-12-09. The instruments were deployed on 2015-07-28 replaced on 2015-10-14. The dataset contains temperature data (five thermistors and two moored CTDs) and velocity data (upward looking ADCP).