Fourth Underwater Glider Mission begins

PHOD initiated the fourth underwater glider mission last Thursday with the deployments of two gliders in the Caribbean Sea off Puerto Rico.

The deployments were conducted on board the R/V La Sultana of the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez (UPRM). Grant Rawson (CIMAS/PHOD) conducted these deployments, together with Prof. Julio Morell of UPR. These gliders have temperature, salinity, oxygen, Chlorophyll-a, CDOM, and backscatter sensors. One glider will continue obtaining profile data on repeat transects under altimeter ground-tracks. The second glider will survey the time varying properties of eddies. Several additional experiments will be also carried out to assess glider-derived currents and sensor accuracy. This mission will last until May/June 2016 and the gliders will obtain approximately 2500 profiles. The fifth mission is scheduled to start in July/August, which is geared towards obtaining critical temperature/salinity profile data to initialize ocean-atmospheric models used for tropical cyclone intensification forecasts.

Participants in the Forth Mission Underwater Glider deployment,from left to right: Joan Bonilla, Luis Pomales, Julio Morell, Grant Rawson and Luis Rodriguez.