TPADS

Accurate forecast models of upper ocean temperature and sound speed profiles, air-sea heat exchange, and rates of sea ice melt all share in common a need for accurate prediction and parameterization of turbulent fluxes through the top ∼ 10-50 meters of the ocean. Such fluxes play a gate-keeping role in regulating air-sea heat fluxes at low latitudes (and hence the oceans role in MISO, MJO, and other coupled phenomena), fluxes to/from sea ice at high latitudes, and fluxes through most of the water column in the shallow coastal ocean. The phenomenology of upper ocean turbulence includes a combination of wind-driven mixing, Langmuir turbulence, sub-mesoscale re-stratification (especially in regions of strong lateral fronts), diurnal cycling from solar heating, and turbulence from breaking internal and surface waves, though obviously the specific balance of those processes varies from place to place. This is in contrast to most regional or global models, which parameterize upper ocean turbulent heat fluxes using one- dimensional mixing schemes. Improved understanding and parameterization requires better observations of the true three-dimensional nature of upper ocean instabilities. Our group has been developing a novel towed phased array doppler sonar system (TPADS), for imaging three-dimensional volumes of upper ocean currents. Here we request ship time to test ongoing technical developments to this system.