HF Radar Performance on a Low Energy Environment as Found Using CODAR SeaSonde on the West Florida Shelf

A network of three CODAR (Coastal Ocean Dynamics Application Radar) SeaSonde HF radars operating at 4.925 MHz has operated on the West Florida Shelf since 2003. HF Radar performance is evaluated in terms of percentage of data returns and RMS differences between the HF radar radial currents and an array of velocity measurements by moored acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP). Temporal variation of the radial current coverage is described and possible factors affecting the HF radar observations on this low energy (current and wave) shelf are discussed. Despite the challenge of achieving more backscatter from this low energy shelf, the data quality is good when the acquired HF radial currents are compared with the ADCP top bins. The RMS difference is in the range of 6 - 11 cm/s for hourly and 3 - 6 cm/s for 36-hour low-pass filtered radial currents, respectively.