HOTSeALS

Through funding from the Ocean Frontier Institute (OFI) we are undertaking a multi year program with gliders to measure oxygen and heat exchange in the Labrador Sea called HOTSeALS (Heat & Oxygen Transport Sensing Across the Labrador Sea). As part of this program we are deploying gliders and surface vehicles (Sailbuoy) during the winter and spring.

Last season 2019-2020 we completed our first deployment with Pearldiver into the Labrador Sea from the RSS James Cook (cruise JC190). The mission was a success lasting 7 months and collectings thousands of profiles in the winter period. HOTSeALS works closely together with TERIFIC – a UK based program (http://projects.noc.ac.uk/terific/) also deploying gliders and Sailbuoys to measure similar water properties. These two programs deliver high resolution surface and subsurface data (1000 m) of the strong mixing (deep convection) that takes place during the winter time in the Labrador Sea.

Together these data sets will answer questions about the amount of heat and oxygen exchanged between the Labrador Sea and the atmosphere, and enable us to track how quickly water properties in this basin change during the energetic mixing phase. This will be valuable to improve modeling of this region and also enable us to learn about better ways to observe the ocean in such harsh regions. Data from these vehicles is made available to the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) as soon as they arrive on our servers so that they can benefit model forecasting around the world! Check out Beluga data here: https://ferret.pmel.noaa.gov/generic/erddap/tabledap/sailbuoy.subset