Vertical distributions of temperature and humidity over the ocean between Nantucket and New Jersey

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the results of a series of airplane psychrometer soundings that were made over the ocean up to a height of 1500 ft during June, 1945. These soundings and previous soundings already described in Papers in Physical Oceanography and Meteorology (VoL. X, No. i) form a new fund of scientifically interesting and valuable information. The vertical distributions of temperature and humidity revealed by these observations in a part of the atmosphere previously subjected to but little detailed study are very different from what was expected; as frequently happens, the unexplored proved more intricate than was anticipated. It has been possible, nevertheless, to put forth a preliminary qualitative explanation of the physical phenomena after they were observed. These measurements contribute to the broad subject, important to meteorologists and oceanographers alike, of the interaction between atmosphere and ocean and the mutually dependent distributions of temperature and other properties on both sides of the interface. The nature of the present results indicates the desirability of further observations of the same type under different conditions and in different places.