This award is a combination of two projects, both involving the deployment of surface current drifters in the central and western equatorial Pacific Ocean, and the analysis of their trajectories and data collected from current and temprature sensors mounted in them, Both projects involve US, French, and Australian institutions. One project (reviewed under OCE- 8716509) is a component of a joint field program to study the water mass distributions, current structures and transport of the low-latitude western boundary currents in the western Equatorial Pacific. Thirty-five drifters will be deployed in the confluence of northern and southern hemisphere waters, which arrive at the entrance to the Indonesian Seas via the South Equatorial Current, the New Guinea Coastal Undercurrent, and the Mindanoa Current. The second study (OCE-8717243) involves deployment of 350 surfce drifters over the entire equatorial Pacific over a three-year period to determin the upper layer advection and heat content and its evolution. In the western Pacific, Richardson will be responsible for deployment and analysis, while in the pan-Pacific study, he will be primarily involved in the data analysis. Both experiments are major process studies contributing to the objectives of the US TOGA (Tropical and Global Atmosphere) Program.
