Data from coastal circulation and water-column properties in the National Park of American Samoa, February-July 2015

In 2015, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and U.S. National Park Service (NPS) researchers began a collaborative study to determine coastal circulation patterns and water-column properties along north-central Tutuila, in an area focused on NPSAs Tutuila Unit and its coral reef ecosystem. The continuous measurements of waves, currents, tides, and water-column properties (temperature and salinity) from these instrument deployments, coupled with available meteorological measurements of wind and rainfall, provide information on nearshore circulation and the variability in these hydrodynamic properties for NPSAs Tutuila Unit. These data will complement ongoing and future water quality efforts along north-central Tutuila and in NPSA that will provide baseline information to determine impacts resulting from management and (or) climate change.

The field experiment included collection of continuous oceanographic data, as well as spatially extensive shipboard surveys and drifter deployments in NPSA from February through July 2015. The goals of the experiment were to understand controls on flow patterns and water-column properties in the NPSA.

This data release includes data from acoustic doppler current profilers, conductivity-temperature-depth profilers, satellite-tracked Lagrangian surface-current drifters, and other time-series oceanographic data. A full description of the data and findings of the study are included in a USGS Open File Report: Storlazzi, C.D., Cheriton, O.M., Rosenberger, K.J., Logan, J.B., and Clark, T.B., 2017, Coastal circulation and water-column properties in the National Park of American Samoa, FebruaryJuly 2015: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 20171060, 104 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20171060.