Deep ocean current profiles, water temperatures, and echo amplitudes from bottom-moored ADCP during 2011-2013 of the Aloha Cabled Observatory (NODC Accession 0123608)

The ALOHA Cabled Observatory (ACO) is a system of hardware and software that extends electric power and the Internet offshore, supporting sustained real-time observations in the deep ocean. The ACO is connected to Oahu, Hawaii by the HAW-4 telecommunications cable transferred to the project by AT&T in 2007. On June 6th, 2011, the ACO was deployed on the ocean bottom (depth ~ 5 kilometers - 3 miles) near Station ALOHA , 100 kilometers (60 nautical miles) north of Oahu, Hawaii. Station ALOHA is the site of the long-term Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) open ocean measurement program, visited by research vessels 10-12 times each year since October 1988.

There are five modules that are connected together on the seafloor. The Junction Box is connected to the HAW-4 cable and to the Observatory module. Together, they supply 1200 watts of power and 100 Megabits per second of Ethernet communications to sensor systems on these two modules, and to the other three modules. The other modules are the Camera tripod, the AMM bottom node, and the TAAM mooring. Sensors provide live video of the ocean bottom around the ACO, sound from local and distant sources, currents, pressure, temperature, and salinity.

This data set contains the 2011-06 to 2013-12 rapidly sampled current velocity data, which are collected at the ACO using a SonTek 250 kHz Acoustic Doppler Profiler. The instrument is located at a depth of 4726.2 m below the mean surface, 1.83 m above the bottom. There are 20 depth bins in each profile, which reaches upward to at most 100 m above the bottom. The data have been quality controlled and are stored in NetCDF format. The files contain current velocity in the east, north, and upward directions in m/s. Ancillary fields include mean echo amplitude and temperature. The project is ongoing with data from 2014- to become available.

ALOHA海底有线观测台（ALOHA Cabled Observatory, ACO）是一套软硬件集成系统，可向远海区域输送电力与互联网链路，支撑深海环境的持续实时观测。该观测台通过2007年由美国电话电报公司（AT&T）移交本项目的HAW-4通信海底电缆，与夏威夷瓦胡岛相连。2011年6月6日，ACO被布放在瓦胡岛以北100公里（60海里）处的ALOHA站附近洋底，布放水深约5公里（3英里）。ALOHA站是长期夏威夷海洋时间序列（Hawaii Ocean Time-series, HOT）开放海洋观测项目的固定站点，自1988年10月起，每年会有10至12艘科研船只到访该海域。

洋底共部署有5个互联的观测模块。接线盒（Junction Box）与HAW-4电缆及观测台主模块相连，二者可向这两个模块以及其余三个模块的传感器系统提供1200瓦电力与100兆比特每秒的以太网通信链路。其余三个模块分别为摄像三脚架、AMM海底节点以及TAAM锚系平台。传感器可采集ACO周边洋底的实时视频、本地与远场声源信号、海流、压强、温度与盐度数据。

本数据集涵盖2011年6月至2013年12月期间的快速采样海流流速数据，由安装于ACO的SonTek 250 kHz声学多普勒剖面仪（Acoustic Doppler Profiler）采集。该仪器布放于平均海面下4726.2米、洋底上方1.83米处。每条观测剖面包含20个深度分层，最大探测高度可达洋底上方100米。数据已完成质量控制，存储格式为NetCDF。文件包含东向、北向与向上三个方向的海流流速数据（单位：米/秒），辅助字段包括平均回波幅度与温度。本项目仍在持续推进，2014年及之后的观测数据将于后续公开。