WHOI Hawaii Ocean Timeseries Station (WHOTS) : WHOTS-9 2012 mooring turnaround cruise report

Abstract

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Timeseries (HOT) Site (WHOTS), 100 km north of Oahu, Hawaii, is intended to provide long-term, high-quality air-sea fluxes as a coordinated part of the HOT program and contribute to the goals of observing heat, fresh water and chemical fluxes at a site representative of the oligotrophic North Pacific Ocean. The approach is to maintain a surface mooring outfitted for meteorological and oceanographic measurements at a site near 22.75°N, 158°W by successive mooring turnarounds. These observations will be used to investigate air-sea interaction processes related to climate variability.The first WHOTS mooring (WHOTS-1) was deployed in August 2004. This report documents recovery of the WHOTS-1 mooring and deployment of the second mooring (WHOTS-2) at the same site. Both moorings used Surlyn foam buoys as the surface element and were outfitted with two Air-Sea Interaction Meteorology (ASIMET) systems. Each system measures, records, and transmits via Argos satellite the surface meteorological variables necessary to compute air-sea fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. In cooperation with R. Lukas of the University of Hawaii, the upper 155 m of the moorings were outfitted with oceanographic sensors for the measurement of temperature, conductivity and velocity.The WHOTS mooring turnaround was done on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Ship Melville, Cruise TUIM-10MV, by the Upper Ocean Processes Group of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The cruise took place between 23 and 30 July 2005. Operations on site were initiated with a 30-hour meteorological intercomparison period, followed by recovery of the WHOTS-1 mooring on 25 July. After offloading data and preparing some subsurface instruments for re-deployment, the WHOTS-2 mooring was deployed on 28 July at approximately 22°46′N, 157°54′W in 4695 m of water. A 31-hour intercomparison period followed. This report describes these operations, as well as some of the pre-cruise buoy preparations and CTD casts taken during the cruise.

WHOI Hawaii Ocean Timeseries Station (WHOTS): WHOTS-11 2014 mooring Turnaround Cruise Report

“…So the ESRL AT offset is plausible. The SCS AT was biased high by about 1°C, as had been observed on previous cruises on the Hi'ialakai (Whelan et al, 2012;Plueddemann et al, 2013;Plueddemann et al, 2014).…”

WHOI Hawaii Ocean Timeseries Station (WHOTS) : WHOTS-10 2013 mooring turnaround cruise report

“…The MAVS was deployed with the sensor head in a downward orientation. The WHOTS-10 MAVS was sent back to NOBSKA for repairs in February 2012, as there have been known problems with these instruments during recent WHOTS cruises (Whelan et al, 2012;Plueddemann et al, 2013). The ACDPs and MAVS instruments were programmed as described in Table 8.…”