Surface Drifter Data of the Equatorial Atlantic: Positions of Lagrangian Hereon Drifters deployed in the Equatorial Atlantic during METEOR Cruise M181

DOI

During the Transatlantic Equatorial Cruise II (TRATLEQ II) with the R/V METEOR (M181) from 17. April to 28. May 2022 (Brandt, 2022), 44 Lagrangian drifters were deployed along the Equator (between 7°W and 37°W) to monitor the surface flow in the upper meter. The equatorial section covered the region of the Atlantic cold tongue that seasonally develops during boreal summer east of 23°W and the western equatorial Atlantic characterized by warmer surface waters and deeper mixed layer depths. In particular, the cruise M181 took place during the warm phase with relatively homogeneous warm surface layer in the whole equatorial Atlantic. Drifters were deployed every 1° longitude (~111 km) between 7°W and 37°W. The drifters were designed and built at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon to follow the upper surface flow (approx. 50 cm). The main body of these Hereon drifters consists of a 7.5 cm x 20 cm long tube with a floatation ring at the top. It is attached to a drogue of 35 cm in both length and diameter through a flexible cord within a distance of 20 cm to the tube. When deployed about 5 cm of the tube protrude from the water surface, resulting in a ratio of drag area inside to drag area outside the water of 21. The tube contains a battery pack and an electronic board, which acquires and reports the GPS position every 5 minutes via a global satellite network in near real time. Table 1 provides some information on the 44 deployed Hereon Drifters, which consists of deployment and working time, total covered distance and number of recorded GPS positions.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.955925
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.948038
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.948039
Related Identifier References https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.948261
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.955925
Provenance
Creator Horstmann, Jochen ORCID logo; Navarro, Wendy; Carrasco, Ruben; Brandt, Peter (ORCID: 0000-0002-9235-955X); Hans, Anna-Christina ORCID logo; Prigent, Arthur
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2023
Funding Reference Agence Nationale de la Recherche https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001665 Crossref Funder ID ANR-19-MPGA-0012 Make Our Planet Great Again grant; Horizon 2020 https://doi.org/10.13039/501100007601 Crossref Funder ID 817578 https://doi.org/10.3030/817578 Tropical and South Atlantic climate-based marine ecosystem predictions for sustainable management
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 44 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (-70.947W, -5.661S, -7.010E, 17.447N)
Temporal Coverage Begin 2022-05-04T13:18:32Z
Temporal Coverage End 2022-10-14T03:16:20Z