Emerging technologies for air-sea interaction research: saildrones during EUREC4A/ATOMIC

Abstract:

Ocean and atmosphere dynamics are affected by the exchange of heat, moisture, momentum, and gases at the air-sea interface. This exchange imprints on almost all aspects of Earth system science, including our weather, climate, and ecosystems. Until recently, observations at the air-sea interface have mostly been limited to moored buoys, research vessels, and volunteer commercial/recreational vessels. Each of these existing platforms has contributed to air-sea interactions research, but lacked dynamically adaptable sampling capabilities that allow us to focus on features of interest and sample them in the most appropriate method for our science interest. Saildrone ocean surface vehicles capture observations at the air-sea interface using autonomous technology, providing a dynamic method of capturing air-sea fluxes and other key ocean variables. These vehicles combine wind-powered vehicle technology with solar-powered meteorological and oceanographic sensors for long-range data collecting missions. During the EUREC4A-(OA) (Elucidating the Role of Cloud-Circulation Coupling in Climate; Ocean-Atmosphere) and ATOMIC (Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign) experiment , four Saildrones in a formation collected observations in the North Brazil Current Ring (NBCR) region during a 45-day period (January-February 2020), providing a comprehensive dataset to study the role of mesoscale to submesoscale variability in barrier layers on air-sea exchange in the Amazon outflow region. The saildrone observations in EUREC4A and ATOMIC demonstrated the advances of adaptive sampling from autonomous ocean observing platforms in large international field campaigns of air-sea interaction.