Author(s): Lei Ren; Stephen Nash; Michael Hartnett
Linked Author(s): Michael Hartnett
Keywords: EOF; CODAR; Surface current; Eigenmode
Abstract: A High Frequency Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (CODAR) system comprising two masts is located in Galway Bay. The radar system measures the surface current with temporal resolution every sixty minutes. This study is focused on a detailed analyses of the surface current measurements from the temporal and spatial CODAR system. The Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) decomposition is applied to investigate attributes of surface current time series, which provides the variance and the eigenvalues of each leading mode. The corresponding time coefficient is also calculated from the function. The analyses of the surface current in Galway Bay shows that the first leading mode represents 94. 7% of variability. The analyses contributes to an early conclusion that wind forcing is a dominant factor for generating surface current in Galway Bay. The results show that EOF analyses is a valuable tool for extracting main information of the measured surface current, and the analyses provides insight into the dataset structure.
Year: 2014