Sunday, Nov. 5, 2006

R/V MIRAI

"in the evening"

Fine
Easterly wind (5m/sec) prevailed and wave height was 1.8 m.

Observations:

All measurement systems were continuously operated.
The maximum SST was 29.1C and its amplitude of diurnal cycle was only 0.5C.
From last night to the early morning, several meso-scale convective systems developed and moved westward. But they dissipated before arriving over the MIRAI. In the daytime, only small echoes were observed and there were no significant cloud clusters. It is worth noting that trade inversion became unclear and preipitable water vapor recovered its value from 40mm to over 50mm. According to the satellite cloud iamges, convectively active areas exist in both hemispheres along the 70E line.

Remarks:

Even now, we are under the convectively suppressed period/region. As mentioned above, however, some parameters indicate the change of their trend that was found in the past several days.
Today's photos were taken in the evening. Since we are conducting 24-hour continuous observation, "evening" does not indicate the end of the day. However, some guys feel that it was evening. At 1800 LST, just after the CTD observation, marine technician washes water sampler every day (photo-2), while one guy cleans the window for precise lidar observation as routine work (photo-3). On the other hand, some guys enjoy their relax time by walking on the deck (photo-4).