AMAPPS Southeast Aerial Cruise Winter 2019-2020

NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC)

As part of the AMAPPS program, the Southeast Fisheries
Science Center conducted an aerial survey on the
continental shelf waters of the US east coast, from
Virginia to the Florida Keys. The survey was conducted
between 7 December 2019 and 25 January 2020 aboard a NOAA
Twin Otter aircraft. Survey tracklines were oriented
perpendicular to the shoreline and latitudinally spaced
20
km apart. The main goal of this survey was to assess the
distribution and abundance of marine mammals and sea
turtles in the US east coast. The survey was designed for
analysis using Distance sampling and a two-team
(independent observer) approach to correct for perception
bias in resulting abundance estimates. Due to unfavorable
weather conditions (mainly fog and heavy winds)
throughout
the survey the northernmost area surveyed was off the
Virginia coast. In addition, from northern South Carolina
to VA, several segments of the proposed tracklines were
not surveyed due to military exercises being conducted
over the area.

The main goal of this survey was to assess the distribution
and abundance of marine mammals and sea turtles in the US
east coast.

Perpendicular distance to the animal is not publicly
available.

The dataset is accompanied by transect (effort) data
which
is provided as a separate file.
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 (Glare intensity)
0 No Impairment
1 Slight Impairment
2 Moderate Impairment
3 Severe Impairment
Weather
0 Clear
1 Mist
2 Light Rain
3 Heavy Rain
Conditions
0 Poor
1 Fair
2 Moderate
3 Good
4 Excellent
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)
effortid	Effort ID
oid_orig	OID assigned by provider
type	Type (Mammal or Turtle)
comname	Species common name
sp_tsn	Taxonomic Serial Number added by OBIS-SEAMAP
individualcount	Individual count
latitude	Latitude in decimal degrees (WGS84)
longitude	Longitude in decimal degrees (WGS84)
perpendiculardistance	Perpendicular distance to the animal (m)
eventdate	Date and time of the sighting at local time
transect	Transect No.
beaufort	Beaufort sea state
cloudcover	Cloud cover code
glare	Glare intensity code
weather	Weather code
conditions	Overall conditions code
haze	Haze presence
fog	Fog presence
sunpen	Sun penetration code
turbidity	Turbidity code
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