TROPICAL ATMOSPHERE-OCEAN (TAO) PROGRAM

FINAL

CRUISE INSTRUCTIONS

FOR

KA-04-01 (GP1-04-KA)

March 18 - April 26, 2004

 

TAO Program Director

Dr. Michael J. McPhaden

PMEL, TAO Project Office

7600 Sand Point Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115

 

Area:            Equatorial Pacific

 

Itinerary:

KA-04-01            Seattle, WA            (transit)           dep.  18 March 2004

                        San Diego, CA                  arr.    23 March 2004  

San Diego, CA                  dep.  24 March  2004

Manzanillo, Mexico                      arr.    26 April 2004

 

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.  The ship will transit from Seattle, WA to San Diego, CA.  During this transit,  PMEL will provide CTD and underway CO2 training.  The scientific complement  for the TAO cruise will embark in San Diego, California on March 23.   The ship will depart  on March 24, 2004 to commence operations as listed in Appendix A.  After completion of operations, KA’IMIMOANA will proceed to Manzanillo, Mexico arriving on or about April 26, 2004.   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:

 

Transit from Seattle to San Diego, March 18 to 23:

 

Name                                      Sex            Nationality            Affiliation

 

1.   Kristy McTaggart                             F            USA                NOAA/PMEL

2.   Cathy Cosca                                     F            USA                NOAA/PMEL

3.   Randy Ramey                                                M            USA                NOAA/MOC-P

4.  Lillian Stewart                                               F            USA                NOAA/MOC-P

5.   CDR Barb  Schoen                                    F            USA                USPHS/MOC-P

6.  Jim Schell                                                 M            USA                NOAA/MOC-P

 

KA-04-01  San Diego, CA to Manzanillo, MX, March 24 to April 26:

 

Chief Scientist:             Dave Zimmerman

 

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.   Dave Zimmerman                           M            USA                NOAA/PMEL

2.   Brian Powers                                               M            USA                NOAA/PMEL

3.   Tricia Sawatsky                                           F            USA                NOAA/PMEL

4.   Jon Laslett                                     M            USA                  MBARI

5.   Bolivar G. Maldonado                             M            Ecuador            INOCAR

 

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 8°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.

Location            Mooring Type                                    Operation

 

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

 

5°N 110°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Recovery/Deploy

 

2°N 110°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Recover/Deploy, Insert, Fairings

                                                                        Mooring moved 15 nm west

 

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

Avoid ADCP

 

2°S 110°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Repair.  Add BP, dump ram.

 

Location            Mooring Type                                    Operation

 

5°S 110°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Visit

 

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

 

8°S 95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Visit

 

5°S  95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Visit

 

2°S  95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Recovery/Deploy

 

0°  95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                        Recovery/Deploy

 

2°N  95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Repair.  Swap rain, dump ram.

                                                                        Insert and fairings.

 

5°N  95°W            ATLAS II - Taut                    Repair.  Swap RMY, dump ram.

 

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

 

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.

 

In order to reduce the cost of standard water needed to calibrate CTD data,  the number of salinity samples has been reduced.   PMEL proposes taking 8 samples per station instead of 12; not sampling 1/2 degree stations; and running 40 samples per standard instead of 36.   Questions regarding these revised procedures should be directed to Kristy McTaggart.

 

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

 

Phytoplankton biomass work consisting of chlorophyll extractions and nutrients samples will be 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.

 

2.03  Bloomsburg University Barnacle Census

 

No barnacles will be collected on this cruise.  The Bloomsburg barnacle census project does not plan to participate on TAO cruises in calendar year 2004.

 

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: 

TBA

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  Pacific Marine Environmetal Lab (PMEL) Argo profiling CTD floats

 

Nine Argo floats are scheduled for deployment on this cruise. These

floats (and 5 more for deployment on the following cruise, KA-04-02) will be loaded on

the ship with the TAO staging in Seattle.  The 9 planned float deployment

locations for this cruise are given below. Individual deployment

positions can be shifted by a degree or so along the ship track if more

convenient.  The first 6 floats (numbers 1239-1242,1246, and 1291) scheduled for

deployment will be stored in a computer lab float rack.  Each float weighs about

56 lbs.  The other 8 floats will be stored 2 to a box outside.  Boxes

will be numbered sequentially in order of deployment.  The boxes weigh about

200 lbs. full and are 82” long x 17” high x 23” long.  Boxes cannot be

stored or transported on their small ends.   The floats are sensitive

to high temperatures, so as space for a pair of floats becomes available

on the computer lab rack, it will be desirable to move floats from the

next box to the rack at the earliest convenient time.  A manual for

float-testing and deployment  is attached as Appendix D.

 

Float deployment locations:

Float id                       Lat            Long

1240                           3N        110W

1241                           0 N/S    110W

1242                           3S        110W

1243                           8S        110W

1244                           8S        95 W

1245                           3S        95W

1291                           2N        95W

1289                           5N        95W

1290                          8N        95W

1288                          11N      98W

 

Argo float questions should be directed to:

 

Gregory Johnson                                              or                     Elizabeth Steffen

NOAA/PMEL                                                                         NOAA/PMEL

(206) 526-6806                                                               (206) 526-6747

Gregory.C.Johnson@noaa.gov                                          Elizabeth.Steffen@noaa.gov

 

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 110W and 95W lines.  Automated sampling cycle is approximately 5 hours.  It is anticipated that the Survey Technician will perform the maintenance tasks.  The contact for this project is:

 

 Michael Bender,  Princeton University

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

 

2.07  Dissolved inorganic carbon analysis (DIC)

 

A  0.5 liter sea water sample from surface CTD casts will be taken and stored for later dissolved inorganic carbon analysis.  Sample jars and mercury chloride solution will be provided by Scripps institute of  Oceanography.  Samples for GP7 and GP8 will be stored on board until the ship returns to Honolulu.  It is anticipated that the survey technician, together with MBARI personnel will take the samples.  A small bench-top drill press is installed on the ship to assist with the bottle capping process.  Samples will be shipped to Scripps at the conclusion of GP2 in Honolulu.
The contacts for this project are:

 

Dr. Andrew Dickson                                                          Dr. Richard Feely

Scripps Institution of Oceanography                      NOAA/PMEL

University of California, San Diego                 7600 Sand Point Way NE

Room 203 -- Vaughan Hall                                     Seattle, Washington   98115

8675 Discovery Way

La Jolla, CA 92037                                                 Tel (206) 526-6214

Tel:   (858) 534-2582

Email: adickson@ucsd.edu                                    Richard.A.Feely@noaa.gov

 

 

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.  Mercuric Chloride solution (saturated with 30 grams)  400 ML            Scripps/PMEL

4.  Mercuric Chloride powder                  30 g                  Scripps/PMEL

 

 

Appendices:

 

A.  Operations  Spreadsheet

B.  Trackline

C.  Mooring  Equipment  Weight  List

D.  PMEL Argo profiling float manual