New developments in the remote measurement of currents and waves at the Scottish Association for Marine Science

David Meldrum, Chris Cromey, Martin Doble, Duncan Mercer and Oli Peppe

Scottish Association for Marine Science
Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory
Oban PA37 1QA
Scotland
Tel: +44 1631 559273
Fax: +44 1631 559001
E-mail: dtm@dml.ac.uk

In our last presentation to this conference in 1999, we outlined the incorporation of GPS and adaptive sampling techniques into a variety of Lagrangian drifters (the GPS-Argos Drifter, the Smart Buoy and the Mini-Drifter), each tailored to address a particular scientific question and optimized for given space and time scales. In this paper we will present examples of the benefits of the techniques in each application, and describe further developments that have led to the successful deployment of innovative ice buoys in both polar regions. These buoys have exploited the high resolution of post-processed GPS techniques, wave spectral data from on board accelerometers, and the enhanced bandwidth of new satellite communications systems to yield valuable new insights into the formation and deformation of young pack ice. At the other end of the scale, mini drifters are now routinely used to estimate diffusion parameters close to pollution sources as part of an ongoing modelling effort to quantify the fate of pollutants.