GPS positions were sampled every 10 minutes. Velocities were computed as centered differences in position (first differences at endpoints).
\nThe instruments were deployed by finding kelp plants near the edges of the three study forests that had been detached from the bottom and were freely drifting, and then attaching gps buoys to the plants with 1/4\u201d polypropylene line. The line was generally attached to part of the kelp plant nearest the surface. The instruments were then left to record their position every 10 minutes. The buoys were retrieved when they reached the shoreline or when it appeared they were leaving the Santa Barbara Channel and would thus become unrecoverable.
\nMore information about Microstar drifters (manufactured by Pacific Gyre Corp.) can be found in Ohlmann et al., 2005.
Various tabular formats of these data are available by clicking the \"Get Data\" button on this page and then selecting \"Downloads & Other Options.\"
\nThese data are also available as a Matlab struct data type containing data for each drift deployment.
\nDownload: kelp_drifter_data.mat (865 KB)
Velocities were computed as centered differences in position (first differences at endpoints). Matlab serial time (UTC) is computed from the recorded GPS time.
\nBCO-DMO Data Manager Processing Notes:
\n* added a conventional header with dataset name, PI name, version date
\n* modified parameter names to conform with BCO-DMO naming conventions
\n* Originally submitted data as matlab structs "day" and "readme" combined into one .mat file and made available for download as "kelp_drifter_data.mat"
\n* the "day" matlab struct converted to a tabular format (matlab Table). Date in format yyyy-mm-dd, time (HH:MM) and ISO timestamp in format yyyy-mm-ddTHH:MMZ were added as columns. Column "vel" was removed as it contained only NaN values. The .csv was imported into the BCO-DMO data system. Blank values are displayed as the default "nd" value for "no data" in the BCO-DMO system.