No abstract

This report is an introduction to the accompanying collection of reports that present the results of a 2-year period of intensive monitoring of the Florida Current. Both direct observing systems (ship-deployed current profilers and moored current meters) and indirect observing systems (coastal tide gauge stations, bottom pressure gauge arrays, a submarine cable, acoustic arrays, and radar installations) were used to measure temperature and volume transport.

Sea level measurements from tide gauges at Miami, Florida, and Cat Cay, Bahamas, and bottom pressure measurements from a water depth of 50 meters off Jupiter, Florida, and a water depth of 10 meters off Memory Rock, Bahamas, were correlated with 81 concurrent direct volume transport observations in the Straits of Florida. Daily-averaged sea level from either gauge on the Bahamian side of the Straits was poorly correlated with transport. Bottom pressure off Jupiter had a linear coefficient of determination ofr(2) = 0.93, and Miami sea level, when adjusted for weather effects, had r(2) = 0.74; the standard errors of estimating transports were +/- 1.2 x 10(6) and +/- 1.9 x 10(6) cubic meters per second, respectively. A linear multivariate regression, which combined bottom pressure, weather, and the submarine cable observations between Jupiter and the Bahamas, had r(2) = 0.94 with a standard error of estimating transport of +/- 1.1 x 10(6) cubic meters per second. These results suggest that a combination of easily obtained observations is sufficient to adequatelv monitor the daily volume transport fluctuations of the Florida Current.