Meteorological, seawater temperature, and current velocity data, from Ofu, American Samoa, 2020

Time series data of meteorological and oceanographic data (temperature & single-point currents) from the southern reef of Ofu, American Samoa, in support of a study on submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) dynamics on this reef within the National Park of American Samoa’s (NPSA) Ofu Unit. In January 2020, USGS scientists, in collaboration with NPSA, initiated an extensive field study on the southern Ofu reef flat with the goal of collecting long-term, high-resolution observations of reef hydrodynamics, SGD, and geochemical tracers. Measurements were collected from two areas on the reef: a West site (‘W’) near the Ofu airstrip and the Papaloloa pool (‘Pool 200’ in previous work), and an East site (‘E’) approximately 800 m further northeast along the reef near the Fatuana pool (‘Pool 300’ in previous work). Due to COVID travel restrictions, the recovery of field instruments was severely delayed, and, consequently, over 90 percent of all instruments and data were lost. However, several oceanographic instruments and their data were recovered. In addition, the records from the shore-based weather station and infrared cameras were successfully recovered. The data from this experiment are split into three public data repositories (see associated items). This page provides time-series data obtained from the land-based weather station and rain-event logger, as well as oceanographic instruments including a single-point current meter and several temperature loggers. The other two data repositories related to this experiment provide the (1) wave and water level time series, and (2) the infrared camera imagery.