WHOI Hawaii Ocean Timeseries Station (WHOTS) : WHOTS-7 2010 mooring turnaround cruise report

Funding was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationunder Grant No. NA09OAR4320129

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Timeseries (HOT)Site (WHOTS), 100 km north of Oahu, Hawaii, is intended to provide long-term, high-qualityair-sea fluxes as a part of the NOAA Climate Observation Program. The WHOTS mooring alsoserves as a coordinated part of the HOT program, contributing to the goals of observing heat,fresh water and chemical fluxes at a site representative of the oligotrophic North Pacific Ocean.The approach is to maintain a surface mooring outfitted for meteorological and oceanographicmeasurements at a site near 22.75°N, 158°W by successive mooring turnarounds. Theseobservations will be used to investigate air–sea interaction processes related to climatevariability.This report documents recovery of the WHOTS-6 mooring and deployment of theseventh mooring (WHOTS-7). Both moorings used Surlyn foam buoys as the surface elementand were outfitted with two Air–Sea Interaction Meteorology (ASIMET) systems. EachASIMET system measures, records, and transmits via Argos satellite the surface meteorologicalvariables necessary to compute air–sea fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum. The upper 155m of the moorings were outfitted with oceanographic sensors for the measurement oftemperature, conductivity and velocity in a cooperative effort with R. Lukas of the University ofHawaii. A pCO2 system was installed on the WHOTS-7 buoy in a cooperative effort with ChrisSabine at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory.The WHOTS mooring turnaround was done on the University of Hawaii research vesselKilo Moana, by the Upper Ocean Processes Group of the Woods Hole OceanographicInstitution. The cruise took place between 27 July and 4 August 2010. Operations began withdeployment of the WHOTS-7 mooring on 28 July. This was followed by meteorologicalintercomparisons and CTDs. Recovery of WHOTS-6 took place on 2 Aug 2010. This reportdescribes these cruise operations, as well as some of the in-port operations and pre-cruise buoypreparations.