From NASA
May 18, 2021
After a delay of more than a year due to the pandemic, a NASA field campaign to investigate the role of small hot tubs and ocean currents in climate change will fly into the seas in May 2021.
This first deployment of the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) mission uses scientific instruments aboard a self-propelled ocean glider and multiple aircraft to ensure that they work together to show what is happening directly below the ocean’s surface. The full-fledged field campaign begins in October 2021 with the aircraft at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
“The main purpose of this May campaign is to compare different methods of measuring ocean surface currents so that we can have confidence in those measurements when we get to the pilot in October,” said Tom Farrar, associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Principal researcher for S-MODE.
The S-MODE team hopes to learn more about small movements of sea water such as eddies. These hot tubs stretch for ten kilometers and slowly move the sea water in a swirling pattern. Scientists believe that these eddies play an important role in the transfer of heat from the surface to the ocean layers below and vice versa. In addition, the eddies can play a role in the exchange of heat, gases, and nutrients between the ocean and the earth’s atmosphere. Understanding these tiny eddies will help scientists better understand how Earth’s oceans are slowing global climate change.
Submesoscale ocean dynamics such as eddies and small currents are responsible for the eddy pattern of these phytoplankton blooms (shown in green and light blue) in the South Atlantic on January 5, 2021. Credits: NASA Color’s Goddard Space Flight Center Ocean using data from the NOAA-20 satellite and the joint NASA-NOAA Suomi nuclear power plant satellite.
A surfboard with its own power supply for science!
The team uses a commercial, self-propelled wave glider equipped with scientific instruments that can be used to study the ocean from its surface. The most important devices on board are the acoustic Doppler flow profilers, which use the sonar to measure the speed of the water and collect information about how fast the currents and eddies are moving and in which direction. The umbrella also carries instruments for measuring wind speed, air temperature and humidity, water temperature and salinity as well as light and infrared radiation from the sun.
“The wave glider looks like a surfboard with a large blind under it,” said Farrar.
This “blind” plunges underwater and moves up and down with the ocean waves to propel the screen forward at a rate of about a mile per hour. In this way, the waveguide is deployed from La Jolla, California, and collects data as it moves 100 kilometers into the ocean off the coast of Santa Catalina Island.
Adorned with solar panels and several scientific instruments, the waveguide will continue to move out to sea from Santa Catalina Island. Credits: Courtesy Benjamin Greenwood / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The new data will enable scientists to estimate the exchange of heat and gases between the earth’s atmosphere and the ocean and, consequently, better understand global climate change.
“We know the atmosphere is warming up. We know the winds are getting faster. But we don’t really understand where all this energy is going, ”said Ernesto Rodriguez, a research fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and assistant principal researcher for the airborne portions of S-MODE. It is likely that this energy will end up in the ocean, but the details of how this process works are still unknown. The team believes that small eddies can help move heat from the atmosphere into the deeper layers of the ocean.
Eyes and scientific instruments in the sky
As the Wave Glider continues its slow hike across the ocean surface, several planes fly overhead to collect data from a different angle.
“On an airplane, we can get a snapshot of a large area to see the context of the interaction of the larger and smaller ocean movements,” said Rodriguez.
For example, a ship or a waveguide moves slowly along a straight line and takes precise measurements of sea surface temperature at specific times and locations. Aircraft move faster and can cover more ground, which means that the sea surface temperature of a large stretch of ocean is measured very quickly.
“It’s like taking an infrared image instead of using a thermometer,” Farrar said.
A flight crew prepares for the B200 King Air Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. From left to right are Jeroen Molemaker and Scott “Jelly” Howe. Credits: Lauren Hughes, NASA Armstrong
Two aircraft will be used on the May test flights: a B200 aircraft from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Center in Edwards, California, and an airliner from Twin Otter International. The B200 has an instrument called the DopplerScatt that can be used to measure currents and winds near the ocean surface using radar. The MOSES (Multiscale Observing System of the Ocean Surface) instrument from the University of California at Los Angeles is also on board to collect data on sea surface temperature. On the Twin Otter level is the Modular Aerial Sensing System (MASS) of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, an instrument for measuring the wave height on the ocean surface.
Delphine Hypolite, Multiscale Observing System of the Ocean Surface (MOSES) operator at the University of California at Los Angeles, performs pre-flight checks on the MOSES camera system at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Credits: Lauren Hughes, NASA Armstrong
The fleet will add a third member to the October experiments: NASA’s Langley Research Center Gulfstream III aircraft with JPL’s portable Remote Imaging SpectroMeter (PRISM), an instrument for measuring phytoplankton and other biological material in the water. During the operations in October, in addition to planes and wave planes, a large ship and some autonomous sailing ships called Saildrones are used.
After almost a year and a half delay due to the pandemic, the S-MODE team is looking forward to getting their planes into the sky and the gliders into the water. “It was frustrating,” said Rodriguez, “but the science team didn’t slow down.” Science continues to advance. “
S-MODE is NASA’s Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) ocean physics mission funded by the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program office at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hamtpon, Virginia and funded by the Earth Science Project Office (ESPO) at the Ames Research Center.
The fleet will add a third member to the October experiments: NASA’s Langley Research Center Gulfstream III aircraft with JPL’s portable Remote Imaging SpectroMeter (PRISM), an instrument for measuring phytoplankton and other biological material in the water. During the operations in October, in addition to planes and wave planes, a large ship and some autonomous sailing ships called Saildrones are used.
After almost a year and a half delay due to the pandemic, the S-MODE team is looking forward to getting their planes into the sky and the gliders into the water. “It was frustrating,” said Rodriguez, “but the science team didn’t slow down.” Science continues to advance. “
S-MODE is NASA’s Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) mission for ocean physics, funded by the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program office of NASA Langley Research Center and by Ames Research’s ESPO (Earth Science Project Office) is managed center.
Caption in header: Flight crews from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, flew the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) installed in the B200 King Air on May 3, 2021. Photo credit: Carla Thomas, NASA Armstrong
From Sofie Bates
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
Last updated: May 18, 2021
Editor: Sofie Bates
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