The goal of this project is to improve the accuracy, reliability, and availability of meteorological measurements and air-sea flux estimates made from buoys and ships. Specifically, over the three year period of the project, the effort would: (l) Focus on improving the sensors used for meteorological measurements from buoys and ships with emphasis on adding humidity and longwave radiation, and on reducing and quantifying errors in both long and shortwave radiation measurements. (2) Use a commercially available, IBM PC compatible processor and motion and attitude sensors for intelligent data acquisition; and incorporate commercially available hardware for telemetry of the data from the buoys and ships. The power and flexibility of the processor would be exploited to further reduce error in the measurements. (3) Quantify the accuracy of the basic measurements made by the sensors and of the resulting estimates of the air-sea fluxes by conducting laboratory, dock, and field calibrations and intercomparisons. (4) Deploy, on a dedicated, local surface mooring and on moorings and ships of opportunity, buoy meteorological systems and ship meteorological systems for longterm testing in order to discover and then correct problems that would, in such use, reduce the accuracy and reliability of the measurements. The work on this project includes strong scientific and technical cooperation with scientists at the University of California at San Diego and the University of Southern California. That work is supported under subcontracts. The overall project is a long lead effort of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE).
