New Interdisciplinary Technologies and Their Potential Utilization in Ocean Observing Systems

A dramatic increase in the number of types of oceanographic optical, chemical, and acoustical sensors has taken place within the past few years. Many of these can now sample interdisciplinary variables relevant to such problems as CO2 budgets, the role of biology in upper ocean heating, phytoplankton productivity, and upper ocean ecology. Many of these sensors have now been successfully deployed from autonomous sampling platforms such as moorings, drifters, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). Many of the optical, chemical, and acoustical variables can be sampled on virtually the same time and space scales as their physical counterparts. This has allowed major breakthroughs in several areas. Examples include: upper ocean response to huricanes, the determination of contributions of mid-latitude open ocean eddies, Arabian Sea monsoons, and equatorial tropical instability waves to primary production, and the modulation of upper ocean heating rates by phytoplankton biomass variations. The synthesis of in situ interdisciplinary data with satellite-based remotely sensed data sets has allowed improved interpretation and utilization of both. Efforts are now underway to develop near real-time data assimilation models which will utilize near real-time, autonomously collected, in situ and remotely sensed, interdisciplinary data sets. The experience gained through these various activities should be valuable in planning and implementing ocean observing systems for climate as well as other applications.

Examples of instrumentation and interdisciplinary results obtained from several geographic sites by our group and collaborators will be highlighted. These will focus on recent experiments including the Bermuda Testbed Mooring program, the Ocean-Systems for Chemical, Optical, and Physical Experiments (O-SCOPE) project, the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study(Equatorial Pacific and Arabian Sea)program, and the Coastal Mixing and Optics program.