WATER-TRACKING ABILITY OF SATELLITE-TRACKED DRIFTERS IN LIGHT WINDS

Satellite-tracked drifter buoys are useful as relatively low cost data platforms for collecting information on water movement, waves, and meteorological conditions. Experiments were conducted during 1983 and 1984 to estimate their water mass-locking capability. The tests involved monitoring the spatial separation of the centre of mass of a dye patch and the centroid of a cluster of drifters. Results showed the drifter and dye divergence to be well explained by a linear dependence between slippage velocity and wind speed for the light wind and small amplitude wave conditions that existed. The average slippage velocity was 0.51% of the wind speed. This was in close arrangement with elementary slippage theory and suggests that under similar conditions this theory should be equally valid for any drifting object.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • J. Mar. Technol. Soc., 19 (1985), p. 12 (No. 3) [6 pp., 4 ref., 2 tab., 6 fig.]
• Authors:
  • McCormick, M J
  • Clites, A H
  • Campbell, J E
• Publication Date: 1985

Language

• English

Subject/Index Terms

• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00691721
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: British Maritime Technology
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 14 1995 12:00AM