Abstract:
The River-Atmosphere-Coast Study (RACS) of the Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC) of the United Kingdom studies land-sea
interactions in the coastal zone and the major exchanges (physical,
chemical & biological) between rivers and estuaries and the
atmosphere.
The east coast of Britain between Berwick-on-Tweed and Great Yarmouth
is the chosen site for RACS. The coastal marine study
... consists of
several seasonal research cruises (using the NERC vessel 'RRS
Challenger') along the east coast of the UK, probing the North Sea,
its major estuaries (the Wash, the Humber, the Tyne and the Tees) and
the English Channel. The data include RRS Challenger cruises 99
(December 1992), 108 (November/December 1993) and 115
(October/November 1994). The objectives of the cruises were to define
the characteristics of the plume emanating from the Humber/Wash
estuaries into the coastal zone, and to carry out surveys of the LOIS
coastal study area, with particular attention given to sediment and
suspended particulate matter (SPM) characteristics and water quality.
In addition, an intensive study of fluxes in the Humber Estuary is
taking place aboard the NRA's vessel 'Sea Vigil', monitoring processes
as far inland as the Aire-Ouse confluence.
The data are split into underway and discrete sampling. Underway data
are stored as time series with all parameters merged on date/time. The
data will be fully quality controlled with checks made for instrument
malfunction, fouling, constancy, spikes, spurious values, calibration
errors, baseline and salt-water corrections. The discrete data are
stored in a relational database (Oracle RDBMS), chiefly as vertical
profiles, and are uniquely identified by a combination of deployment
number and depth.
BODC are responsible for calibrating, processing, quality controlling
and documenting the data and assembling the data set. This work is
currently underway. As more data are collected as part of LOIS RACS
they will be processed and added to the database.
Data can be supplied via ftp, on CD-ROM, or, for small volumes of
data, on floppy disk or as e-mail attachments. Please contact
BODC for further details.
[This description was derived from the BODC WWW pages.] 
