Collaborative Research: Observing Integrating Ocean Variables

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Funding is provided for the development a new instrument that combines the measurement of bottom pressure (Pb), sea floor to sea surface acoustic travel time (from Inverted Echo Sounder, IES), and motionally-induced electric fields (from Horizontal Electrometer, HEM) into a single autonomous device. The goal is to improve the HEM, and incorporate this sensor with ones for Pb and IES into an instrument that is robust, easily deployed and recovered, long-lived, inexpensive, and suitable for wide community usage. The proposed instrument will provide long-duration, deep-ocean observations of the gravest vertical structure of current fields and water properties (e.g., temperature, salinity, specific volume anomaly) of the water column using solely seafloor instruments. Although autonomous and deployable anywhere, either singly or in arrays, the instrumentation will also be cable ready for possible installation on planned undersea cabled ocean observatories.