Research Vessel Southern Surveyor : a platform of the IMOS Ships of Opportunity - Research Vessels Real-Time Air-Sea Flux Sub-Facility

As part of the Ships of Opportunity - Research Vessels Real-Time Air-Sea Flux (ASF) Sub-Facility - Research Vessel Southern Surveyor collects underway meteorological and oceanographic observations (including SST) during scientific voyages in the oceans adjacent to Australia. Data products are quality controlled meteorological and SST observations, and bulk air-sea fluxes. 

The RV Southern Surveyor operates as the Marine National Facility (MNF http://www.marine.csiro.au/nationalfacility/), and conducts scientific research voyages in all the seas adjacent to Australia.
The Southern Surveyor is a 66m, 1600t vessel and operates under the call sign VLHJ. The ship is configured to perform research in oceanography and climatology; fisheries, marine ecosystem and marine environmental research; a wide range of marine geoscience; and multi-disciplinary marine research. 

Cruise schedules are available at http://www.marine.csiro.au/nationalfacility/schedules/index.htm 

Real-time, Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is processed from the vessel's SBE 3T (3F or 3plus) calibrated temperature sensor located ~100 mm from the ship's skin in the thermosalinograph water intake pipe at ~5.5 m depth.

Research Vessel Real Time Air-Sea Fluxes, aims to equip the MNF (Research Vessel Southern Surveyor) with "climate quality" meteorological measurement systems, capable of providing high quality air-sea flux measurements and delivered to researchers on a near real-time basis. Observations are obtained from RM Young anemometer (main mast), 2-D Sonic Anemometer (fore-mast), Vaisala temperature/humidity (main mast, port and starboard), air pressure (on the bridge), long and short-wave radiation (Eppley PSP and PIR, monkey Island port and starboard) and precipitation (Osi Optical rain gauge, Rm Young Siphon gauge, foremast).

Data streams are fed into the existing ship data management system, and broadcast via satellite back to Australia 3-hourly. The observations are quality controlled at the Bureau of Meteorology and air-sea fluxes calculated using the COARE Bulk Flux algorithm. 

A daily file of 1-minute averages of the observations and a daily file of 5-minute average calculated bulk fluxes are generated shortly after 0000UTC and provided to eMII.

Tags: Atmosphere | Atmospheric Pressure | Atmospheric Pressure, Atmosphere | Atmospheric Temperature | Skin Temperature, Atmosphere | Atmospheric Temperature | Surface Air Temperature, Atmosphere | Atmospheric Water Vapor | Humidity, Atmosphere | Precipitation | Precipitation Rate, Atmosphere | Radiation Budget | Heat Flux, Atmosphere | Radiation Budget | Longwave Radiation, Atmosphere | Radiation Budget | Shortwave Radiation, Countries | Australia, Countries | Fiji, Countries | New Caledonia, Countries | New Zealand, Global / Oceans | Indian Ocean, Global / Oceans | Pacific Ocean, Global / Oceans | Southern Ocean, IMOS Platform | VLHJ | Southern Surveyor, Oceans | Ocean Optics | Photosynthetically Active Radiation, Oceans | Ocean Temperature | Sea Surface Temperature, Regional Seas | Coral Sea, Regional Seas | Tasman Sea
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network