Arabian Sea mixed layer dynamics experiment data report

Abstract

The Arabian Sea is characterized by strong, large-scale atmospheric forcing during the summer (southwest) and winter (northeast) monsoons. To investigate air-sea interactions related to this unique surface forcing, a moored array was deployed from 15 October 1994 to 19 October 1995 just south of a region that experiences the climatological maximum winds during the summer monsoon. The array consisted of two Scripps Institution of Oceanography surface toroid buoys, two University of Washington subsurface moorings and a surface 3 m discus buoy deployed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The WHOI buoy carried redundant meteorological packages to measure wind speed and direction, air temperature, relative humidity, barometrc pressure, incoming short- and long-wave radiation and precipitation. Oceanographic instrumentation was deployed on the WHOI buoy's bridle and mooring line to collect time series of temperatue, salinity and velocity at various depths. Four multi-varable moored systems (MVMS) were also deployed along the mooring line by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the University of California at Santa Barbara to record both bio-optical and physical parameters. This report describes the instrumentation deployed on the WHOI buoy and the processing and editing of the returned data. The data are then summarized in graphical and tabular formats.