Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006

R/V MIRAI

"Leg-2 report"

Observations:

see below

Remarks:

On 27 November 2006 during port call Male which was the last day of MISMO leg1, we invited several personnel from Maldives Department of Meteorology to R/V Mirai who provided many support for our MISMO land site operation. They enjoyed the short tour in R/V Mirai.

The MISMO leg2 started on 28 November 2006 from Male (Photo 1). Here, we outline the observation since that.

On 30 November, we recovered the subsurface ADCP mooring at 1.5N80.5E, and on 1 December that at 1.5S80.5E. Besides those, we visited ATLAS buoy sites at the same locations, both meteorological sensors look fine (Photo 2). We also carried out deep sea hydro cast and the sampled water will be used for the research on the vertical distribution of green house gasses, and generation mechanism through bio-geo chemical processes. On 1 December 2006, the humidity decreased from 90% to 80%, the relatively dry air may suggest the beginning of winter monsoon season. A north-easterly wind surge generates strong precipitation, as shown in a radar reflectivity image superposed on satellite cloud picture (Fig. 1). After that, the winds turned to west and eastward currents.

The ADCP moorings were deployed at four sites as part of the MISMO mooring array. We have recovered the two of four at the end of leg1, and all moorings operated by JAMSTEC (two m-TRITON, and four ADCP moorings) have been recovered. Although, the data at 1.5N80.5E was missed, we obtained fine data at other three sites (0,79E; 0,82E, 1.5S80.5E), it shall enable us to calculate volume transport and heat budget in that area.

From 3 December we will continue to service the moorings at 0 and 1.5S90E and 5S95E.