Richard Dewey (Associate Director, Research)
VENUS has been collecting Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) data in the Strait of Georgia since 2008. It is already possible to download this data in RDI binary file format, which can be loaded directly into the RDI WinADCP software or read into Matlab. Shown on the left is an example plot of a day of data (Oct 7, 2009) from the SoG East VIP platform in 170 m of water.
Shown in the four panels, top to bottom are the East-West
currents U, the North-South currents V, the Vertical (Up-Down) velocities W, and the Acoustic Backscatter. The tidal currents at this site typically run SSE during the ebb (06:00) and NNW during the flood (12:00). There is a back-ground vertical shear, with stronger ebb currents near the surface and stronger flood currents near the bottom. Internal waves are picked up in the vertical velocities after 15:00, and the back-scatter clearly shows the daily migration of the zooplankton.
