The Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) : NTAS-14 mooring turnaround cruise report

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Date
2015-12Author
Bigorre, Sebastien P.
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Pietro, Benjamin
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Smith, Jason C.
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Morris, Ethan
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Plueddemann, Albert J.
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Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7762Location
North Atlantic OceanDOI
10.1575/1912/7762Keyword
Endeavor (Ship: 1976-) Cruise EN549; Ocean-atmosphere interaction; Oceanographic instrumentsAbstract
The Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) was established to address the need for
accurate air-sea flux estimates and upper ocean measurements in a region with strong sea surface
temperature anomalies and the likelihood of significant local air-sea interaction on interannual to
decadal timescales. The approach is to maintain a surface mooring outfitted for meteorological
and oceanographic measurements at a site near 15°N, 51°W by successive mooring turnarounds.
These observations are used to investigate air-sea interaction processes related to climate
variability. The NTAS Ocean Reference Station (ORS NTAS) is supported by the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Observation Program.
This report documents recovery of the NTAS-13 mooring and deployment of the NTAS-14
mooring at the same site. Both moorings used Surlyn foam buoys as the surface element. These
buoys were outfitted with two Air-Sea Interaction Meteorology (ASIMET) systems. Each
system measures, records, and transmits via Argos satellite the surface meteorological variables
necessary to compute air-sea fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. The upper 160 m of the
mooring line were outfitted with oceanographic sensors for the measurement of temperature,
salinity and velocity.
The mooring turnaround was done by the Upper Ocean Processes Group of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), onboard R/V Endeavor, Cruise EN549. The cruise took
place between December 5 and 21 December 2014. The NTAS-14 mooring was deployed on
December 13, and immediately followed by a 36-hour intercomparison period during which data
from the buoy, telemetered through Argos satellite system, and the ship’s meteorological and
oceanographic data were monitored. The NTAS-13 buoy had parted on September 23 and was
recovered on October 28 while drifting freely near Martinique. The rest of the mooring, which
had fallen to the seafloor was recovered during EN549, on December 17. This report describes
these operations, as well as other work done on the cruise and some of the pre-cruise buoy
preparations.
Other operations during EN549 consisted in the recovery and deployment of Pressure Inverted
Echo Sounders (PIES) and the acoustic download of data from PIES and subsurface moorings
that are part of the Meridional Overturning Variability Experiment (MOVE) array. MOVE is
designed to monitor the integrated deep meridional flow in the tropical North Atlantic. Two
Argo floats were also deployed during the cruise on behalf of the Argo group at WHOI.
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Suggested Citation
Technical Report: Bigorre, Sebastien P., Pietro, Benjamin, Smith, Jason C., Morris, Ethan, Plueddemann, Albert J., "The Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) : NTAS-14 mooring turnaround cruise report", 2015-12, DOI:10.1575/1912/7762, https://hdl.handle.net/1912/7762Related items
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