Augmenting the offshore meteorological buoys with downward looking ADCPs would be extremely valuable, especially if located under altimeter tracks or crossover points, for verifying the winds and the baroclinic shear in the upper ocean that the altimeter is missing. The model winds underestimate the curl and smooth it over large distances due to their coarse spatial resolution. Offshore CTD transects will measure the mean geostrophic transport relative to some depth and ADCP measurements will improve the calculations. Cross-shelf transects will reveal jets or eddies crossed along the way, if sampling is sufficient. Towed, undulating vehicles with CTD sensors provide the best coverage.
Drifters provide information on the eddy field statistics and typical velocities.
Presently available winds are probably adequate to describe the surface Ekman transport. Rough estimates of upwelling and vertical transport made from geostrophic wind fields are probably adequate. However, some of the regional boundaries do not have surface expressions. Vertical structure -Buoys may provide continuous profiles of temperature structure and velocity at a point, providing information on the forcing of internal mixing. Merchant vessel XBTs provide stratification periodically along regular routes.