Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006

R/V MIRAI

"fine, later rain"

Fine, later cloudy, sometimes rain.
Wind from ENE prevailed whole day. Mean wind speed was 5 m/sec.
We had relatively strong swell in the morning, and significant wave height exceeded 2.5 m.

Observations:

Radiosonde observation, CTD casting, and other routine observations have been carried out.
In the morning, precipitation systems developed along 1S and moved westward. We had no rain, rather clear weather. In the aftenoon, however, it was overcasted (photo-1) and we had several precipitation systems around the MIRAI.

Remarks:

Although we first intended to try to launch the snow-white sonde in the clear sky, it changed abruptly and we postponed it. Satellite data still shows large cloud area over the Indian Ocean.
Photos 2-4 are taken at deck.
Although we conduct CTD observation, CTD does not capture the accurate data near the sea surface due to its mechanical features. In addition, we must calibrate the surface data taken by autonomous sea surface monitoring system. Thus, we directly sample the sea surface water by bucket and measure it.
Today, we had 11th MIRAI seminar. Two graduate students introduced their surface flux measurement and CO2 observation (photo-5). In addition, another student, who missed the presentation a couple days ago, also did her duty (photo-6).