HR: 0800h
AN: OS21C-1266    [Abstracts]
TI: Eddies in the western tropical Pacific observed using a synthetic moored array of autonomous gliders
AU: * Fratantoni, D M
EM: dfratantoni@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography Department, Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Lund, J M
EM: jlund@whoi.edu
AF: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Physical Oceanography Department, Woods Hole, MA 02543 United States
AU: Carnes, M S
EM: carnesm@navo.navy.mil
AF: Naval Oceanographic Office, Oceanography Department, Stennis Space Center, MS 39522 United States
AU: Toner, M
EM: tonerm@navo.navy.mil
AF: Naval Oceanographic Office, Oceanography Department, Stennis Space Center, MS 39522 United States
AB: A synthetic moored array composed of autonomous gliders was used to characterize mid-ocean mesoscale variability in a 100 km x 100 km domain east of Luzon Strait in May 2004. Each of five gliders in the array maintained geographic position while profiling between the surface and 200 m. The resulting time series at each array position, including slab velocity estimates every 2 hours and 200 m high-resolution CTD/optical profiles every 40 minutes, may be interpreted in the same manner as a physically-moored chain of instruments. This approach provides an efficient means for a single survey ship to rapidly obtain spatially distributed time-series data at low cost and with minimal need for on-site technical support. The typical equivalent watch circle of a glider performing a synthetic mooring mission was less than 3 km, comparable to that expected from a bottom-moored surface mooring in similar (6000 m) water depth. Temperature, salinity, and velocity time series exhibit strong semidiurnal and diurnal fluctuations. Similar temporal variability is also evident in a deep maximum in chlorophyll fluorescence observed near 120-130 m. We will present an overview of this experiment including comparisons with simultaneous shipboard measurements, remote observations of sea surface height and temperature, and numerical model results.
UR: http://glider.whoi.edu
DE: 4520 Eddies and mesoscale processes
DE: 4594 Instruments and techniques
SC: Ocean Sciences [OS]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting