AMAPPS Southeast Aerial Cruise Spring 2014

NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC)

As part of the AMAPPS program, the Southeast Fisheries
Science Center conducts aerial surveys of continental
shelf waters along the US East Coast from Southeastern
Florida to Cape May, New Jersey. Aerial survey TOSE14SPR
was conducted during 2014 between 24 March and 28 April.
The survey was conducted along tracklines oriented
perpendicular to the shoreline that were latitudinally
spaced 20 km apart aboard a NOAA Twin Otter aircraft at
an altitude of 600 feet (183 m) and a speed of 110 knots.
The survey was designed for analysis using Distance
sampling and a two-team (independent observer) approach
to correct for visibility bias in resulting abundance
estimates. The survey covered waters from Cape May, NJ to
South Carolina including “fine-scale” tracklines in
waters offshore of New Jersey and Virginia. Due to
weather conditions during the survey, only effort from
South Carolina to Cape May, New Jersey was completed.

The goal of the survey was to conduct line-transect surveys
using the Distance sampling approach to estimate the
abundance and spatial distribution of marine mammals and
turtles in waters over the continental shelf (shoreline to
200m isobaths) from Southeast, Florida to Cape May, New
Jersey.

[2019-04-15] Data were updated for the correction in the
glare column.

Trip ID / Dataset ID of this dataset is TOSE14SPR.

Perpendicular distance to the animal is not publicly
available.
Turtle and marine mammal data were submitted separately
but merged into one dataset.
The dataset is accompanied by transect (effort) data
which is provided as a separate file.
Data were further audited in 2018 since publication of
Annual Report in 2014.
Sightings included were detected on-effort by the forward
team only; you may request the full dataset and sightings
including opportunistic ones directly to the provider.

Environmental Attribute Codes
Beaufort Sea state
0 Calm, mirror like seas
1 Waves <1ft, rippled surface
2 Small wavelets (<2 ft), no white caps
3 Large wavelets (<3ft), scattered white caps
4 Swell 3-4 ft, numerous white caps
5 Swell >5 ft, many white caps, some spray
6 Swell >10 ft, white caps everywhere, spray
CloudCover
0 Clear
1 0-25% Cloudy
2 26-50% Cloudy
3 51-75% Cloudy
4 76-100% Cloudy
5 Overcast
Glare
0 No Glare
1 <10% of visual field
2 10-25% of visual field
3 25-50% of visual field
4 50-75% of visual field
5 >75% of visual field
Weather
0 Clear
1 Mist
2 Light Rain
3 Heavy Rain
Visibility
0 Clear
1 Good
2 Fair
3 Poor
Haze
0 No
1 Yes
Fog
0 No
1 Yes
Sun penetration (Sun pen)
0 Poor
1 Fair
2 Good
3 Excellent
Turbidity
0 Poor
1 Fair
2 Good
3 Excellent

Overview

This section explains attributes included in the original dataset. OBIS-SEAMAP restricts the attributes available to the public to date/time, lat/lon and species names/counts only. Should you need other attributes described here, you are encouraged to contact the data provider.

Attributes described below represent those in the original dataset provided by the provider.
All attributes are included in the downloadable file (CSV or ESRI File Geodatabase) for "Complete Set of Dataset".

Attributes in dataset

Attribute (table column)	Description
oid	Unique ID number (generated by OBIS-SEAMAP)
speciescode	Species code by provider (blank for sea turtles)
sightid	Sight ID
comname	Species common name
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
individualcount	Individual count
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees
perpendiculardistance	Perpendicular distance to the animal
eventdate	Date and time of the sighting at local time
transect	Transect No.
beaufort	Beaufort sea state
glare	Glare cover code
cloudcover	Cloud cover code
weather	Weather code
haze	Haze presence
fog	Fog presence
sunpen	Sun penetration code
turbidity	Turbidity code
visibility	Visibility code
effortid	Effort ID
tripid	Trip ID
platformvlts	Always A (Airplane)
oneffort	Flag (Y/N) to indicate on effort.
observationheight	Altitude of aircraft in feet above sea level in feet
platformspeed	Speed of the platform in knots
sighttype	Sighting type ("F")
datasetid	Dataset ID by provider
datasetname	Dataset name by provider
eventdatetimezone	The time zone of the observation event (UTC)
geom	Geometry field added by OBIS-SEAMAP