Lagrangian Drifters

PI:Eric D'Asaro Eric D'Asaro's Email Eric D'Asaro's Homepage

Six Lagrangian floats will be deployed from the Palmer after the initial CTD survey at sites with high potential for thermobaric instability. Each float will measure its own depth, temperature and salinity using hydrographic quality Seabird sensors. Floats will alternate between Lagrangian drifts, in which they accurately follow the three-dimensional water motions (Fig. DA1b) and vertical CTD profiles (Fig. DA1ac). Two floats will carry acoustic transponders so that they can be tracked from the Palmer, thus allowing high accuracy 3 dimensional float trajectories to be obtained and allowing the ship-based measurements to stay with the tagged water mass. After the end of the winter season, the floats will park themselves at 20-50m, drift northward with the prevailing current and return data using Iridium telemetry in February 2006 after the ice melts.