High Frequency Coastal Radar Project


Introduction

 As part of the DOLCEVITA program high frequency (HF) coastal radars were installed in the Northern Adriatic Sea starting in September 2002 to monitor the surface circulation in most areas of the Northern Adriatic for more than a year. The radar project was sponsored by the United States Office of Naval Research and the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. It is a collaborative effort conducted by OGS and the University of Hawaii.

Three radar sites were installed along the Italian coast south of the Po River delta. The northernmost site located on the delta (Faro di Goro, Goro) includes a linear array of 16 antennas (beam-forming), whereas the intermediate (Punta Marina, Ravenna) and the southernmost (Monte San Bartolo, Pesaro) sites consist of 4 antennas installed in a square pattern (direction-finding). The HF radars used are WERA systems manufactured by Helzel Messtechnik in Kaltenkirchen, Germany in collaboration with the University of Hamburg. They are operated near 16 MHz in both beam-forming and direction-finding modes.

For each radar, radial currents are obtained from the Doppler shift of Bragg-lines in the spectrum data. Maps of radial currents are produced at intervals ranging between 20 minutes and one hour. These radial maps are combined to produce maps of the surface currents on a uniform grid with 2-3 km spacing. Radar-inferred surface currents can be overlaid on maps of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll to describe the near-surface dynamics. The radar data include information about surface currents at a variety of scales, from tides to the seasonal signal. Surface wave parameters (peak direction and significant wave height) can also be extracted from the data of some of the radars.

General Description (pdf format)

 Proposal
English Italian


Brochure
English Italian

First Results

 Spectra from the Monte San Bartolo Site



Real-time data

Goro Pesaro Ravenna


Picture Gallery

Monte San Bartolo Site



Faro di Goro Site



Punta Marina Site



Other pictures at Univ. of Hawaii


Links
HF Radar Program, Univ. of Hawaii

HF-Radar Home Page, Univ. of Hamburg

Acknowlegments

We would like to thank the following individuals for helping with the installation logistics and with the data processing: Jérome Aucan, Riccardo Barbanti, Alessandro Bubbi, Roberto Cecco, Cédric Chavanne, Davide Deponte, Michele Deponte,eBenedicte Dousset, Io Flament, Mael Flament, Klaus-Werner Gurgel, Thomas Helzel, Oliver Koshe, Paolo Mansutti, Elena Mauri, Philip Moravcik and Giulio Notarstefano. We would like to thank the following individuals and institutions for providing us with permits to install the WERA stations and for helping with the local logistics:

Monte San Bartolo, Pesaro: Ente Parco Naturale Monte San Bartolo, Provincia di Pesaro Urbino, Comune di Pesaro, Comando 28°Regg. Fant. Pavia, ARPAM Pesaro, Dr. F. Piperno.

Faro di Goro, Goro: Consorzio per la Gestione del Parco Regionale del Delta del Po, Comune di Goro, Provincia di Ferrara, Corpo Forestale dello Stato, Fabrizio Farinelli e Valentino Gianella.

Punta Marina, Ravenna: Capitaneria di Porto di Ravenna, Agenzia delle Dogane, AGIP Petroli, ARPA Ravenna



Principal Investigator at OGS: Dr. Pierre-Marie Poulain
ppoulain@ogs.trieste.it

Principal Engineer at OGS: Ing. Fabio Brunetti
fbrunetti@ogs.trieste.it

Principal Investigator at SOEST: Dr. Pierre Flament
pflament@soest.hawaii.edu

Principal Engineer at SOEST: Derek Young
dereky@soest.hawaii.edu