The drifter deployment was part of the MARGOCEAN experiment (https://margo.obs-banyuls.fr/index.php/en/ ), performed as a collaboration among Sorbonne University (France), CNRS (France), and CNR-ISMAR (Italy).

10 CARTHE-type drifters were deployed in the Antarctic Ocean in February 2024 to track glaciogenic waters originating and spreading from Kerguelen Island.

The deployment strategy consisted in releasing drifters along two transects: on February 6, the first transect of 5 drifters was located off the northern coast of the Kerguelen Island; while  on February 12, the second (and last) transect of 5 drifters was deployed at the northern flank of the Kerguelen Plateau.

CARTHE-type drifters follow the sea currents within the first 60cm of the water column (Novelli 2017, 2018, 2020).

Nominal drifter transmission rate: 10 minutes. Positions available until November 4, 2024.

The dataset includes raw positions; outliers were removed.

Each file contains a drifter trajectory in the NetCDF format (ex: 001.nc, 002.nc, etc...).

References:

• Novelli, G., C.M. Guigand, C. Cousin, E. Ryan, N. Laxague, H. Dai, B. Haus, and T.M. Özgökmen (2017). A biodegradable surface drifter for ocean sampling on a massive scale. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 34(11), 2509-2532.

• Novelli, G., C.M. Guigand, T.M. Özgökmen (2018). Technological Advances in Drifters for Oil Transport Studies. Marine Technology Society Journal, 52(6), 53-61.

• Novelli, G, C.M. Guigand, M. Boufadel, T.M. Özgökmen (2020). On the transport and landfall of marine oil spills, laboratory and field observations. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 150, 110805.