Abstract:
The Ocean Reference Station at 20°S, 85°W under the stratus clouds west of northern Chile is being maintained to provide
ongoing, climate-quality records of surface meteorology, of air-sea fluxes of heat, freshwater, and momentum, and of upper ocean
temperature, salinity, and velocity variability. The Stratus Ocean Reference Station (ORS Stratus) is supported by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Observation Program. It is recovered and redeployed annually, with
cruises that have come between October and December. During the October 2005 cruise of NOAA’s R/V Ronald H. Brown to the
ORS Stratus site, the primary activities were recovery of the WHOI surface mooring that had been deployed in December 2004,
deployment of a new WHOI surface mooring at that site, in-situ calibration of the buoy meteorological sensors by comparison
with instrumentation put on board by staff of the NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory (ETL), and observations of the
stratus clouds and lower atmosphere by NOAA ETL. The ORS Stratus buoys are equipped with two Improved Meteorological
(IMET) systems, which provide surface wind speed and direction, air temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure,
incoming shortwave radiation, incoming longwave radiation, precipitation rate, and sea surface temperature. The IMET data are
made available in near real time using satellite telemetry. The mooring line carries instruments to measure ocean salinity,
temperature, and currents. The ETL instrumentation used during the 2005 cruise included cloud radar, radiosonde ballons, and
sensors for mean and turbulent surface meteorology. In addition, two technicians from the University of Concepcion collected
water samples for chemical analysis. Finally, the cruise hosted a teacher participating in NOAA’s Teacher at Sea Program.
