User manual

Table Of Contents
NOTE
It is important to note that for shallow and deep pressure, the pressure stops are pressures, not
depths. The measurements available to the MMP during a profile are of in situ pressure, not
depth in meters. Normally, physical locations on the mooring are commonly referenced in
meters. The profiler does not integrate state variables over the depth of the water column to
construct a mapping between decibars and meters.
Deep Pressure <D>
Deep pressure is the intended “bottom” of the profiling range. The system stops profiling
on a downward profile when the ambient pressure becomes greater than the deep pressure limit.
Ambient pressure is determined by querying the CTD. The deep pressure limit is ignored during
upward profiles.
Allowed range: Shallow pressure to 6000.0 dbar.
During a profile, the pressure measurements acquired through the CTD are time tagged
and stored in the engineering data file. This time and pressure information is used to dynamically
calculate the pressure rate, δP/δt.
NOTE
The δP/δt calculation is not performed for the first 3 minutes and 30 seconds of a profile. The
pressure measurements and time tags are kept in rolling, indexed buffers so that the mooring
motion filtering requirement of the calculation can be verified and met at each possible
subsequent iteration. Failed pressure acquisitions are flagged and not used in the calculation.
The pressure rate is used to detect obstacles on the mooring cable. An obstacle is a
mooring component or some form of fouling that hinders the profiling motion of the MMP. The
nominal profiling speed of the MMP is 25cm/s. When the pressure rate, averaged over at least
3 minutes, falls below a threshold of 0.045 dbar/s ~ (4.5 cm/s), the firmware declares a pressure
rate of zero. The pressure rate threshold and the minimum δt were determined empirically during
a series of field trials and deployments. A smaller δt or a higher threshold may lead to false
detections of a zero pressure rate, caused by wave induced mooring motions that modulate the
otherwise steady progress of the profiler.
G-48