9617072 Toole The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will continue development and testing of a moored profiling instrument. This device, shaped like and affectionately named the M&M, uses a traction drive to propel itself up and down a mooring cable to full ocean depth. Any number of profiling instruments may be attached to the device that is designed to accomplish up to 100 round trips between the seafloor and the surface. This work will provide additional deployment time in the ocean off Bermuda to document long-term instrument and sensor behavior. A series of three deployments will be made there of four to eight months' duration over a two-year period. Beyond acquiring technical and performance experience with the Moored Profiler, the acquired data will document the intensity of high frequency thermohaline stratification variability offshore Bermuda. These signals are not resolved by conventional ship-based time-series station work at this site.
