Current Magnitude and Direction

Monthly and annual U and V vectors were summarized for 14 unique depth levels from daily means using the HYCOM and NCODA Global 1/12-degree Reanalysis. The U vector (m/s) is to the East and the V vector (m/s) is to the North. Current magnitude (m/s) was calculated using the daily U and V vectors. Descriptive statistics of mean, variance, standard deviations, minimum, and maximum were calculated for each month from the twenty years of data using the daily means (1992-2012). Mean, variance, and standard deviation was calculated for the annual summary period (1992-2012). The mean direction in degrees (with 0 = North) was calculated from the summarized U and V vector means, and represents the direction that the current is moving toward. The 1/12-degree global HYCOM+NCODA Ocean Reanalysis was funded by the U.S. Navy and the Modeling and Simulation Coordination Office. Computer time was made available by the DoD High Performance Computing Modernization Program. The output is publicly available at http://hycom.org.