Climate

Buoy Riders
Service calls to buoys in the middle of the ocean are anything but routine. In April 2006, research specialist Frank Bahr and senior engineering assistant Jeff Lord from the WHOI Upper Ocean Processes Group were dropped off for several hours by the research vessel Oceanus to conduct at-sea repairs on the Air-Sea Interaction Meteorology (ASIMET) buoy in the Gulf Stream. ASIMET sensors measure heat, sunlight, winds, precipitation, humidity, barometric pressure, air and sea surface temperatures, and salinity. Through CICOR, NOAA funds several similar buoys in other parts of the world ocean. (Photo by Patrick Rowe, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Booby Prize A booby flies by and checks out the WHOI Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station (WHOTS III) shortly after researchers and technicians deployed it off of Hawaii in June 2006 from the research vessel Revelle (visible in the background). A WHOI research team, including physical oceanographer Al Plueddemann, is headed back to sea this week to recover the buoy and set a new one. (Photo by Sean Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) (Photo by Sean Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Time to Check the Data
Physical oceanographer Bob Weller and engineering assistant Sean Whelan examine, inspect, and remove sensors from the long wave radiation and short wave radiation modules on an ASMIMET (Air Sea Interaction and Meteorological) buoy. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.)

Argo at WHOI
WHOI Senior Scientist Breck Owens and Bob Tavares on deck holding an Argo float. Argo is a global array of 3,000 free-drifting profiling floats that measures the temperature and salinity of the upper 2000 m of the ocean. This allows, for the first time, continuous monitoring of the temperature, salinity, and velocity of the upper ocean, with all data being relayed and made publicly available within hours after collection. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

All Hands (and Eyes) on Deck
WHOI oceanographer Bob Weller assists in the recovery of the STRATUS mooring off the coast of Chile in 2006. Weller and WHOI senior engineering assistant Jeff Lord (hands on the right side of the photo) inspected the connectors and hardware to see how they survived many months in the ocean. The goal of the Stratus project is to observe and understand air-sea interactions and the surface forcing in the region of the intertropical convergence zone. (Photo by Sean Whelan Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

WHOTS Up? Jeff Lord, a WHOI senior engineering assistant, directs the deployment of the WHOI Hawaii Ocean Timeseries Station II buoy. In cooperation with the University of Hawaii and its Hawaii Ocean Timeseries (HOT) project, the WHOI Upper Ocean Processes Group set the mooring in the central Pacific to provide long-term, high-quality measurements of the exchange of heat, gases, and water between the ocean and atmosphere. (Photo by Al Plueddemann, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) (Photo by Al Plueddemann, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Born Under a Good Sign
Nature greets the newly deployed WHOI Hawaii Ocean Time Series (WHOTS) IV buoy during deployment off Hawaii with a sign of good fortune on June 25, 2007. The long-term ocean monitoring program is designed to measure the transfer (or flux) of heat, moisture, energy, and chemicals between the ocean and the atmosphere. (Photo by Sean Whelan Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Checking It Twice Senior engineering assistant Jeff Lord examines pieces of a new inductive-telemetry buoy that WHOI researchers deployed off of Barbados in April 2007. The buoy is the seventh in a series of Northwest Tropical Atlantic Stations (NTAS) that researchers have deployed for studies of the exchange of heat, gases, and water between the air and sea. (Photo by Sean P. Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) (Photo by Sean P. Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Argo floats can be deployed simply over the rail of small vessels. Brief History of Argo The name Argo was chosen to emphasize the strong complementary relationship of the global float array with the Jason satellite altimeter mission. In Greek mythology Jason sailed in a ship called "Argo" to capture the golden fleece. Together the Argo and Jason data sets will be assimilated into computer models developed by project GODAE (Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment) that will allow a test of our ability to forecast ocean climate. For the first time, the physical state of the upper ocean is being systematically measured and the data assimilated in near real-time into computer models. (Photo by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)