Stratus 9/VOCALS: Ninth Setting of the Stratus Ocean Reference Station & VOCALS Regional Experiment. Cruise RB-08-06, September 29-December 2, 2008. Leg 1: Charleston-Arica, September 29-November 3, 2008, Leg 2: Arica-Arica, November 9?December 2, 2008

Abstract

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Timeseries (HOT) Site (WHOTS), 100 km north of Oahu, Hawaii, is intended to provide long-term, high-quality air-sea fluxes as a part of the NOAA Climate Observation Program. The WHOTS mooring also serves as a coordinated part of the HOT program, contributing to the goals of observing heat, fresh water and chemical fluxes at a site representative of the oligotrophic North Pacific Ocean. The approach is to maintain a surface mooring outfitted for meteorological and oceanographic measurements by successive mooring turnarounds. These observations will be used to investigate air-sea interaction processes related to climate variability. This report documents recovery of the WHOTS-4 mooring and deployment of the fifth mooring (WHOTS-5). Both moorings used Surlyn foam buoys as the surface element and were outfitted with two Air-Sea Interaction Meteorology (ASIMET) systems. Each ASIMET system measures, records, and transmits via Argos satellite the surface meteorological variables necessary to compute air-sea fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. The upper 155 m of the moorings were outfitted with oceanographic sensors for the measurement of temperature, conductivity and velocity. A pCO2 system was installed on the WHOTS-5 buoy. The WHOTS mooring turnaround was done between 3 and 11 June 2008. Operations began with deployment of the WHOTS-5 mooring. This was followed by meteorological intercomparisons and CTDs at the WHOTS-4 site. A period of calmer weather was taken advantage of to recover WHOTS-4 on 6 June 2008. The Kilo Moana then returned to the WHOTS-5 mooring for CTD operations and meteorological intercomparisons. This report describes these cruise operations, as well as some of the in-port operations and pre-cruise buoy preparations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA502873

Entities

People

  • Carlos Moffat
  • Carmen Grados
  • Chris Zappa
  • Christopher W. Fairall
  • Dan Wolfe
  • David Covert
  • David Grant
  • Fiamma Straneo
  • Jeffrey Lord
  • John T. Farrar
  • Matthew P Miller
  • Mingxi Yang
  • Nancy Galbraith
  • Paquita Zuidema
  • Robert A. Weller
  • Sean P. Whelan
  • Simon P. de Szoeke

Organizations

  • Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Birds
  • Cells
  • Chemistry
  • Climate Change
  • Measurement
  • Medical Personnel
  • Meteorology

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers
  • Oceanography.

Technology Areas

  • Space