A theoretical analysis of the use of submarine cables as electromagnetic oceanographic flowmeters

Abstract
An examination is made of the theoretical basis and simplifying assumptions governing the use of the voltage measured across the ends of a submarine cable as a measure of the sea flow across the cable section. In part I a method of calculating the response of an electro-magnetic flowmeter by means of a weight vector is applied to the oceanographic situation. A numerical model is developed which generates the weight vector distribution for given submarine cables. In part II, weight vector distributions are obtained for various cables around the British Isles, and the cable responses to given velocity distributions in the sea are calculated. It is shown that the velocity distributions associated with different tidal frequencies, storm surges and long period residual flows will result in different responses at a given cable. The implications of this are discussed. The effect on the cable response of seasonally varying sea conductivity, and of a tidal range which is not negligible compared with the mean depth, is also modelled.

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