All Climate Events

Tuesday, October 31, 2017. 2:00PM. Webinar: The Tropical Atlantic Current Observations Study (TACOS) at 4N, 23W. Renellys Perez, NOAA. Sponsored by Center for Satellite Applications and Research. More information here.

Hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean and rainfall over the neighboring continents are impacted by air-sea fluxes in the tropical Atlantic. These fluxes are highly dependent on upper-ocean temperature and salinity. To better quantify temperature and salinity variations in the tropical Atlantic, upper ocean velocity variations need to be measured and their contributions to advection and vertical turbulent mixing determined. As a first step toward resolving fine vertical scale (less than 10 m) velocity variations in the upper ocean, the Tropical Atlantic Current Observations Study (TACOS) was initiated in March 2017.  As part of the first TACOS deployment, the PIRATA Northeast Extension (PNE) mooring at 4°N, 23°W was augmented with ten Nortek Aquadopp acoustic current meters. The current meters are distributed between 7 and 87 m depth with vertical resolution of 5 m in the surface mixed layer and 10 to 20 m below the surface mixed layer.  This novel data set will be combined with temperature, salinity, and meteorological data from the PNE mooring to examine how currents vary on diurnal to intraseasonal time scales and how these velocity variations influence temperature and salinity at 4°N, 23°W.