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In Situ remote portal |
Float activities within MerSea
Why are Floats important for Ocean Modelling?Remote-sensing measurements provide synoptic observations of sea level and sea surface temperature (SST) over the world ocean, but with no direct estimation of the ocean’s vertical structure. In contrast, in-situ platforms such as Argo Floats or XBT provide the inside view of the ocean . However despite the impressive increase in the number of temperature and salinity profile les from the Argo array, in-situ data still undersample the temporal and spatial variability of the ocean thermohaline structure. That's why it's important to increase the number of floats in the ocean in order to reach the target of 3000 actives floats, one per each 3° square. To achieve this goal both National and International programs must contribute to the funding of the Argo program. Areas of deploymentAs a contribution to the ARGO observing network 3 geographical areas have been chosen because the involved institutes have strong expertise, they are important for Mersea models (Deep water formation, thermohaline circulation ) and are under-sampled. Present Mersea Argo Deployment
Quality control activitiesIn coherence with the Argo project, the partners will adapt the Argo quality control procedures, for real time distribution and delayed mode validation, to their area of deployment. Climatologies must be developed for each region, against which the observations will be calibrated. Climatologies will be exchanged between each component and regional ARGO data centers, for the purpose of developing a unique world wide reference data set. Once the float data is streaming, delayed mode quality control must also become operational. Therefore we aim to implement an operational system, which will occur in year 3, once the development of the climatological fields is finished.
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 MARINE ENVIRONMENT AND SECURITY FOR THE EUROPEAN AREA INTEGRATED PROJECT IFREMER, BP 70 29280 Plouzané France merseaip@ifremer.fr |
