Monday, Oct. 23, 2006

R/V MIRAI

"turns to the southward at 3N"

Cloudy, later partly fine.

Observations:

Along the 80E line, we released the Argo floats at 0.5N, 1.25N, and 3N. We successfully released all (12) Argo floats as we planned. Since some of them are scheduled to ascend once a day, we could confirm that they surely send the data to land via satellite.
Near the (1.5N, 80.3E), we conducted the survey of bottom topography to find a flat area, where we can deploy the mooring system. In addition, we inspected the damage of ATLAS buoy at 1.5N, 80.5E so that we can smoothly swap the met sensors tomorrow.
We've started the radiosonde observation to observe the atmospheric condition every 3 hours (photo-1). Usually we conduct it by alone, but only first a couple of days several guys do it together to confirm the operation (photo-2).

Remarks:

Large precipitation area has passed away.
At present, it is difficult to define the center of MJO-convections. We looked for the timing of release of the videosonde within the heavy precipitation system, but there was no significant precipitation area near the MIRAI today (Fig. 1).
Many researchers come to the Doppler radar operation room to see the current situation and they discuss the possibility of cloud developments.
MIRAI turns the ship course from northward to southward at 3N, 79.5E. Observation enters into the main stage...