SHEBA Ocean Turbulence Mast Data Archive

This data set includes a time series of temperature, conductivity, salinity, three-dimensional velocity, pressure, and magnetic heading at multiple levels in the boundary layer under the drifting ice floe. As part of the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project, data were collected continuously for the approximately year-long experiment. However, the experiment was divided roughly in half when a severe deformation event occurred in March 1998. After this event, the ocean camp was shifted to a new site farther into the SHEBA floe.

In the first half of the experiment (October 1997 through March 1998), there were four turbulence instrument clusters (TIC) that included three mechanical rotor current meters, which sensed the mean flow velocity. These were oriented approximately at 4 m, 8 m, 12 m, and 16 m below the ice-ocean interface in the western Arctic Ocean. For the second half of the experiment (April through September 1998), only two TICs were deployed on the mast. The clusters measured mean quantities, turbulent momentum, and heat fluxes with reasonable approximations to salinity flux.

Data were originally distributed on a DVD but are now available as a single .tar.gz file that contains the contents of the DVD. The file is about 1GB in size.