FY 1979

SEASAT Gulf of Alaska Experiment surface truth data inventory

Wilkerson, J.C., and S.L. McNutt

JPL Internal Document 622-99, 90 pp (1979)

Introduction

The launch on June 26, 1978, of Seasat, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) experimental ocean-survey satellite, marked the beginning of a proof-of-concept mission to establish the feasibility of monitoring the oceans from space. An initial and critical part of the proof-of-concept mission was a major NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) field experiment in Gulf of Alaska. The experiment was designed to collect in situ physical oceanographic and meteorological data for verification and evaluation of Seasat sensor performance.

The Gulf of Alaska Experiment was conducted during the period of August 28 to September 26, 1978, and was carried out from ships, aircraft, and buoys. The experiment was conducted under the control of a coordinator based at an experiment control center at the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), Seattle, Washington. After September 14, the lead ship, the NOAA Survey Vessel OSS Oceanographer, was joined by four research aircraft (two NASA, one Navy, and one Canadian), which made underflights coinciding with the passage of the satellite over the ship. The aircraft collected remotely sensed data simultaneously from airborne sensors corresponding to those carried aboard the satellite. Nine NOAA data buoys moored in the Gulf of Alaska also supported the experiment, as did two Canadian Weather Ships, Quadra and Vancouver, stationed alternately at Ocean Station P (PAPA).

This report is an inventory of all physical oceanographic and meteorological surface truth data collected during the experiment from each of the participating platforms. Although it is not meant to be a data report, it does contain observational values for some sensors where reduced data was available prior to publication. This is the case for all NOAA Buoy Sensors and for most shipboard instruments installed on the Oceanographer and on the Canadian weather ships occupying Ocean Station PAPA.

Participating times of ships, buoys, and aircraft used during this experiment are given in Figure 1-1. Key personnel are identified in Table 1-1.