Spatial objective analysis of small numbers of Lagrangian drifters

To analyze the irregularly spaced tracks of freely drifting surface buoys, objective analysis techniques were applied to produce optimal estimations of forecast surface current fields on a regularly spaced grid. With the interpolation of raw data to the grid points, further analysis can be done with other computer programs. A computer program using this technique has previously been successfully applied to large oceanographic data sets of many drifter tracks. The objective analysis program has been converted for use on Hewlett-Packard microcomputers and applied successfully to much more limited data sets of from one to six drifters