Thirty years of research and development of Lagrangian buoys at the Institute of Marine Sciences

Abstract

Summary:Since the mid-1980s, physical oceanographers at the Institute of Marine Sciences have been involved in the use of Lagrangian drifters as a complementary technology for their oceanographic research. As Lagrangian observations became more feasible, these researchers continued developing their own drifters in what was to be the seed of current technological activities at the Physical and Technological Oceanography Department. In this paper we overview the work done during the last 30 years with special focus on Lagrangian developments from the initial activities to the latest developments. In addition to basic oceanography research applications, Lagrangian technological developments include prototypes for measuring surface and subsurface ocean properties, for tracking purposes in search and rescue operations and pollution events, and for monitoring ice motion and thickness in the Arctic. The paper emphasizes original and unpublished technical aspects related to the latest developments.Keywords: Lagrangian drifters; sea surface measurements; salinity measurements; oil spills drifters; SMOS. Treinta años de investigación y desarrollo de boyas Lagrangianas en el Instituto de Ciencias del MarResumen: Desde mediados de la década de los 80, los oceanógrafos físicos en el Instituto de Ciencias del Mar se involucraron en el uso de boyas Lagrangianas como una tecnología complementaria para su investigación oceanográfica. A medida que las observaciones Lagrangianas se volvieron más factibles, los investigadores continuaron desarrollando sus propios flotadores en lo que se convirtió en la semilla de las actuales actividades tecnológicas llevadas a cabo en el Departamento de Oceanografía Física y Tecnológica. En este artículo se presenta una visión general del trabajo realizado durante los últimos 30 años, con especial énfasis en el uso de flotadores a la deriva y desarrollos propios desde su inicio hasta las aplicaciones más recientes. Además de estudios básicos de investigación oceanográfica, los desarrollos tecnológicos llevados a cabo incluyen prototipos para medir las propiedades superficiales y sub-superficiales, para tareas de seguimiento en operaciones de búsqueda y rescate y eventos de contaminación marina o para monitorizar el grosor de la capa de hielo y su movimiento en el Ártico. En este trabajo se hace hincapié en aspectos técnicos originales e inéditos relacionados con los últimos desarrollos.Palabras clave: flotadores Lagrangianos; medidas de la superficie del océano; medidas de salinidad; flotadores de vertidos de petróleo; SMOS.Citation/Como citar este artículo:

High-Resolution Ocean Currents from Sea Surface Temperature Observations: The Catalan Sea (Western Mediterranean)

“…It is composed of a low density polyethylene cylinder with 110 mm of diameter and 430 mm height. It hosts a high-performance GPS, with an error smaller than 6 m and a sampling frequency of 30 min [36]. The dummy in a horizontal position has almost no drag, which implies that it is very sensitive to wind, consequently, we focused on those situations with no wind.…”

Dataset on the TIC-MOC cruise onboard the R/V Hespérides, March 2015, Brazil-Malvinas Confluence

“…6 , Table 1 ). These drifters have a spherical surface buoy, containing the batteries and the electronics of the system, and a 15-m holey sock dragged at 100–200 m depth [5] . The electronics consists of a global positioning system and a satellite data transmitter (Global Star in four buoys and Iridium in the other four); positions were acquired every 30 min in all drifters.…”

The scientific and personal imprint of Jordi Font, a serene oceanographer

“…With the advent of satellite tracking capabilities in the 1970s and the improvements in drifter design and battery capacity in the 1980s, drifters became a valuable tool for sampling the ocean over a wide range of scales, from tidal/ inertial to inter-annual scales and from a few to thousands of kilometres (Niiler 1995). Font played a fundamental role in launching the Lagrangian observations at the IIP in the 1980s, which have remained active during the last 30 years (García-Ladona et al 2016). All these ongoing activities led him to supervise two doctoral thesis (Masó 1989, García-Ladona 1991; the latter co-supervised by Joaquim Tintoré) and to author numerous high-impact publications (Font 1987b, Font et al 1988a, 1990, 1998, Castellón et al 1990, La Violette et al 1990, López Garcia et al 1994, Alberola et al 1995, García-Ladona et al 1996, Salas et al 2001, Ruiz et al 2002.…”

“…Additionally, in the framework of several projects funded by the Spanish government, a buoy was designed and constructed at the ICM in order to measure ocean temperature and salinity, either in moorings or operating as a drifter (García-Ladona et al 2016). A version of this buoy was capable of measuring these variables at only 20 cm below the sea surface so, together with data from the Argo global array of profiling floats (Argo, 2016), it was to be used as the ground-truth to validate the radiometric salinity measurements (see next section).…”