Observed currents from the Gulf of Finland – description of the ADCP dataset (2009–2015)

Abstract

The Gulf of Finland (GoF) in the Baltic has been extensively studied for the last three decades. To further support the work in this area, we present the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s (FMI’s) acoustic Doppler Current profiler (ADCP) dataset from the GoF covering years from 2009 to 2015, published in FMI’s Research Data repository. This dataset includes simultaneous measurements from up to three different sites covering ice-free seasons in years 2009–2012 and continuous measurements from April 2013 onwards. In this paper, we give an overall description of the ADCP dataset with detailed information on the metadata and deployment information to facilitate the future use of the measurements. In addition, we present a brief description of the characteristics of the observed currents. The measurements improve understanding of the GoF circulation patterns, showcasing the large variability and vorticity of the currents in the area while catching many events of strong currents due to the relatively long measurement time series.