Abstract
As the demand for electrical energy increases, it is becoming a necessity to find alternatives to nonrenewable resources due to their eventual depletion and environmental impacts. Therefore, exploiting renewable energy sources to provide electrical energy presents a solution to fulfill this energy demand. One of these renewable energy sources is ocean current energy. With ocean current energy being a desirable solution due to its reliability and abundance, the Florida Gulf Stream is a promising resource. It has time-averaged energy densities of at least 0.5 kW/m2 over an area of 145,830 km and many areas with much higher energy densities [1], as well as a power generation potential of 5.1 GW [2]. Although numerous ocean current resource assessments have been performed, these have focused on quantifying ocean current flow statistics through either the direct measurement of ocean currents or using numerical models. To more clearly understand the flow features within these currents, it is important to both identify and track them. No concurrence was found within literature regarding the best data sources for conducting such an assessment. Consequently, this paper will provide a quantitative comparison of both ocean eddy and Gulf Stream edge detection and tracking success as a function of utilized data types obtained from disparate ocean-observing techniques. WERA high-frequency radar technology, and satellite data encompassing sea surface temperature, salinity, height, and color will be conducted for the Florida Straits, and bottom-mounted ADCP datasets are used to measure current velocities throughout the water column to quantify the impacts of identified flow features. WERA high-frequency radars are implemented due to their ability to map ocean current velocities and directions at large distances. Sea surface temperature satellite data is widely used for eddy detection. However, it has been shown not to be suitable during the summertime due to the existence of thermally stratified layers in the ocean. Therefore, an attempt will be made to evaluate the oceanic flow features based on other satellite data. Salinity and height distributions will be analyzed, and the sea surface color will show chlorophyll variations, which will entail a more detailed examination of flow behavior near the western and eastern edges of the Florida Gulf Stream. These measurements from diverse oceanographic instruments not only accentuate disparate prediction techniques, but also provide insight into the pragmatism of harvesting ocean current energy from the Florida Gulf Stream.