Pan American Climate Study (PACS) : mooring recovery cruise report, R/V Melville cruise PACS03MV, 6 September to 30 September 1998

Abstract

Two surface moorings were recovered during R/V Melville cruise PACS03MV in the eastern equatorial Pacific as part of the Pan American Climate Study (PACS). PACS is a NOAA-funded study with the goal of investigating links between sea-surface temperature variability in the tropical oceans near the Americas and climate over the American continents. The two moorings were deployed near 125°W, spanning the strong meridional sea-surface temperature gradient associated with the cold tongue south of the equator and the warmer ocean north of the equator, near the northernmost, summer location of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone. The moored array was deployed to improve the understanding of air-sea fluxes and of the processes that control the evolution of the sea surface temperature field in the region. Two surface mooring, located at 3°S, 125°W and 10°N, 125°W, belonging to the Upper Ocean Proccess (UOP) Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), were recovered after being on station for eight months. This was the second setting of the two moorings that had been redeployed from the University of Washington's R/V Thomas Thompson cruise number 73. The buoys of the two WHOI moorings were each equipped with meteorological instrumentation, including a Vector Averaging Wind Recorder (VAWR), and an Improved METeorological (IMET) system. The WHOI moorings also carried Vector Measuring Current Meters, single point temperature recorders, and conductivity and temperature recorders located in the upper 200 meters of the mooring line. In addition to the instrumentation noted above, a variety of other instruments, including an acoustic current meter, acoustic doppler meters, bio-optical instrument packages and an acoustic rain gauge, were deployed during the PACS field program.