A comparison of near-surface CODAR and VACM measurements in the strait of juan de fuca, August 1978

Three days of simultaneous near-surface current measurements made by Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (CODAR) and surface-moored Vector-Averaging Current Meters (VACM) in the Strait of Juan de Fuca are compared. The study focuses on the mean flow and tidal components that contained approximately 79% of the kinetic energy. The mean speed and direction differences were less than 7 cm/s and10\degrespectively. TheK_{1}andM_{2}tidal constituents agreed to within 14 cm/s with a mean differende of 5.2 cm/s. This study demonstrates that CODAR yields estimates of the near-surface currents that are comparable with conventional VACM arrays to 10-15 cm/s.