TROPICAL ATMOSPHERE-OCEAN (TAO) PROGRAM

FINAL

CRUISE INSTRUCTIONS

FOR

KA-03-02 (GP2-03-KA)

March 24 - April 27, 2003

 

TAO Program Director

Dr. Michael J. McPhaden

PMEL, TAO Project Office

7600 Sand Point Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115

 

Area:   Equatorial Pacific

 

Itinerary:

KA-03-02       San Diego, CA                      dep.  24 March  2003

Manzanillo, Mexico               arr.   27 April 2003

 

CRUISE DESCRIPTION

 

General guidelines are contained in the TAO Program Standard Operating Instructions for NOAA Ship KA’IMIMOANA dated June 28, 2002.

 

Cruise Objective and Plan:

 

The objective of this cruise is the maintenance of the TAO Array along the 110°W and 95°W meridians and deploy a broadband subsurface ADCP mooring alongside an existing narrowband subsurface ADCP mooring  at 0°, 110°W.  The scientific complement will embark in San Diego, Califonia and depart aboard KA’IMIMOANA on March 24, 2003 to commence operations as listed in Appendix A.  After completion of operations, KA’IMIMOANA will proceed to Manzanillo, Mexico arriving on or about April 27, 2003.   All dates and times referred to in these cruise instructions are in Pacific Standard Time (PST).

 

PMC  Operations:                                         TAO  Operations  Manager:

Larry Mordock                                               LCDR Chris Beaverson, NOAA

NOAA/MOC-Pacific (MOC-P1x3)              PMEL, TAO, R/E/PM

1801 Fairview Ave. East                              7600 Sand Point Way NE

Seattle, WA  98102-3767                            Seattle, WA 98115-0070

(206) 553-4764                                             (206) 526-6403

Larry.Mordock@noaa.gov                           Chris.Beaverson@noaa.gov

 

1.0 PERSONNEL

 

1.1   CHIEF SCIENTIST AND PARTICIPATING SCIENTISTS:

 

Chief Scientist:          Patrick A’Hearn

 

The Chief Scientist is authorized to revise or alter the scientific portion of the cruise plan as work progresses provided that, after consultation with the Commanding Officer, it is ascertained that the proposed changes will not: (1) jeopardize the safety of personnel or the ship; (2) exceed the overall time allotted for the cruise; (3) result in undue additional expenses; (4) alter the general intent of these instructions.  A list of participating scientists follows.  All participating scientists will submit a medical history form and be medically approved before embarking.

 

Participating Scientists

 

Name                                      Sex     Nationality      Affiliation

 

1. Patrick A’Hearn                                        M         USA                NOAA/PMEL

2. Brian Powers                                            M         USA                NOAA/PMEL

3. Jim Wells                                                   M         USA                Scripps

4. Freddy Hernandez                                    M         Ecuador         INOCAR

5. Hideko Yoshihara                                     F          Japan             UCSD/Bloomsburg

 

 

 

 

2.0  OPERATIONS

 

Mooring Operations are scheduled to be conducted as shown in Appendix A.  Operations will be conducted from 8°N - 110°W to 8°S - 110°W and 8°S  - 95°W to 12°N  95°W.  The following mooring operations are anticipated, though the work may be changed by direction of the Chief Scientist, in consultation with the Commanding Officer.

Note that all moorings were replaced on the last BROWN cruise in November 2002.  We assume that if less than 5 moorings along 95 W require replacement we will only replace those required.  If in the unlikely event the number  requiring replacement is only a few, this may impact the BROWN cruise in the fall, as a large number of recovery deployments would be necessary.  Repairs will be made with enhanced instruments as long as they are available.

Location         Mooring Type                                    Operation

 

8°N 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Recovery/Deploy

 

5°N 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Visit

 

2°N 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Recovery/Deploy, insert, fairings

 

0°N 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Recovery/Deploy, Insert, fairings

0°N 110°W    ADCP                                     Deploy broadband ADCP next to existing

 

2°S 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Repair, swap anemometer

 

5°S 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Visit

 

8°S 110°W    ATLAS II - Taut                      Recovery/Deploy

 

8°S 95°W      ATLAS II - Taut                      Recovery deploy.

 

5°S  95°W     ATLAS II - Taut                      Repair.

 

Location         Mooring Type                                    Operation

 

2°S  95°W     ATLAS II - Taut                      Recover/Deploy (Placeholder)

 

0°  95°W        ATLAS II - Taut                      Repair.

 

2°N  95°W     ATLAS II - Taut                      Recover/Deploy  (Placeholder)

 

3.5°N 95°W   ATLAS II - Taut                      Visit

 

5°N  95°W     ATLAS II - Taut                      Recover/Deploy  (Placeholder)

 

8°N  95°W     ATLAS II - Taut                      Recover/Deploy  (Placeholder)

 

10°N  95°W   ATLAS II - Taut                      Visit

 

12°N  95°W   ATLAS II - Taut                      Visit

 

 

2.01 CTD

 

At a minimum, 1000 meter CTD casts shall be conducted at each mooring site between 12° N and 8° S for sensor inter‑comparison purposes.  As time permits, additional or deeper CTD's should be conducted whenever addition of the CTD’s will not impact scheduled mooring work.  For example, if the ship would arrive at the next mooring site in the middle of the night, it is preferable to do CTD’s on the way, rather than remain hove to waiting for daylight.  Another example would be when mooring operations are significantly ahead of schedule.  Beyond those at mooring sites, CTD's should be conducted in the following order of priority:

 

- 1000m CTD’s at one degree latitude intervals between 12° N and 8° S , along the ship's trackline.

- Extend 1000m CTD’s at mooring sites to a minimum of 3000m or a maximum depth of 200m from bottom.  4 to 6 deep casts are optimal, occurring at the beginning and end of the cruise as well as at both equatorial sites.

- 1000m CTD’s every one‑half degree of latitude between 3°N and 3°S

- Additional calibration CTD’s to be determined by Chief Scientist.

 

Jim Wells of Scripps will be available to assist the survey technician with CTD casts and running salinities.

 

2.02  Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) Chlorophyll and Nutrients

 

Phytoplankton biomass work consisting of chlorophyll extractions and nutrients samples will collected from CTD rosette at 0, 10, 25, 40, 60, 100, 150 and 200m. The total volume used from each bottle, including rinses is approximately one liter; except for the surface bottle, which will require approximately three liters.  This requires use of the sink/bench area of the wet lab for filtration purposes.  Chlorophyll samples will be measured on-board using a bench-top fluorometer which will require use of the salinometer room.  Nutrient samples (sea water) will be stored in the science hold and off-loaded upon return.  The barnacle observer will conduct this work.

 

2.03  Bloomsburg University Barnacle Census

 

Barnacles will be collected in accordance with TAO Standard Operating Instructions.   Sea spiders will also be collected in a similar manner by the barnacle observer on behalf of Lanna Cheng of Scripps.  The sea spiders will be preserved in 70% ethanol.  A pre and post cruise inventory of Hazardous Materials (Hazmat) brought aboard and offloaded from the ship will be given to the Chief Scientist and Commanding Officer.  All Hazardous Materials will be properly labeled as to content, Hazmat classification and cruise number.

 

2.04  Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Surface Drifters

 

The Global Drifter Center at NOAA/AOML requests drifter deployments on an ancillary basis.  The drifters are small, easily deployed devices which are tracked by Argos and provide Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and mixed layer currents.  The global array of drifters provides SST ground truth for NOAA's polar orbiting satellite AVHRR SST maps.  They also provide data to operational meteorological and ocean models, and research ocean current data sets.  AOML drifters are scheduled at the following positions: 

110W deployed at 3N,2N,equ,2S,3S

95W deployed at 3N,2N,equ,2S,3S

 

The drifters are scheduled to be delivered to the Scripps MARFAC the week of March 17th.  The deployments should have little or no impact upon primary ship operations.  Questions should be directed to:

 

Craig Engler, Global Drifter Center, NOAA/AOML

305‑361‑4439 (office) or 305‑361‑4392 (fax)

Craig.Engler@noaa.gov or http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/

 

 

2.05  Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SOI) SOLO Deep Ocean Drifters

 

 23 SOLO drifter floats are proposed for deployment on this cruise at the following locations:  TBD

If positions coincide with CTD stations, they should be shifted off-station. A margin of 40 miles in either direction applies to all of the positions.  Jim Wells of Scripps will be responsible for the deployments.

 

Questions should be directed to:

Brent Jones

Scripps Institution of Oceanography ‑ University of California, San Diego

(858) 822-2973    b3jones@ucsd.edu

 

2.06  Discreet gas sampler

 

Whole air samples are cryogenically dried and pumped into glass flasks by an automated system in the computer lab.  Following the cruise, the flasks are returned to Princeton University for analysis by prepaid FEDEX.  Pairs of flasks are collected while the ship is underway at 8N, 4N, 0, 4S and 8S along the 140W and 125W lines.  Automated sampling cycle is approximately 5 hours.  It is anticipated that the Survey Technician will perform the maintenance tasks.

 Michael Bender,  Princeton University

(609) 258-2936    bender@geo.princeton.edu

 

 

3.0  Hazardous Materials

 

The Chief Scientist is responsible for the proper and safe storage of scientific hazardous material and complying with NC Instruction 6280B, Hazardous Materials and Hazardous Waste Policy, Guidance, and Training, dated May 8, 1991. This includes the requirement for the Chief Scientist to remove all scientific team hazardous materials and waste at the end of the cruise.

 

3.1 Ancillary Projects Hazardous Materials

 

1. Acetone                                                                             12 Liters         MBARI

2. Hydrochloric Acid (HCL)                                                  6 Liters           MBARI

3. Formalin (50% stored in Wx deck Hazmat locker)       32 Liters         Bloomsburg

    (diluted to 5% working solution for wet lab use)

4.  Ethanol (70%)                                                                  2 Liters           Bloomsburg

 

Appendices:

 

A.  Operations  Spreadsheet

B.  Trackline

C.  Mooring  Equipment  Weight  List