A distributed network of internal wave resolving moored arrays for assessing tide-resolving model fields and improving forecasts in the coastal ocean

PI: Waterhouse, Amy (University of California, San Diego, SCRIPPS)
Start Year: 2022 | Duration: 3 years
Partners: Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California San Diego, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pasadena

Project Abstract:

We propose to collect high-frequency in situ measurements that can resolve the energy flux associated with internal waves propagating through the deep ocean by combining high vertical- resolution moorings to resolve the waves’ modal structure with an antenna of vertically- integrated measures of variability to resolve the speed and direction of beam propagation. This proposal will instrument one internal-wave resolving (IWR) array that is re-deployable to multiple locations. The IWR Array proposed here comprises two pressure-sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PIESs) and five PIESs with an additional current-sensor on each (CPIESs) and a densely instrumented, full-depth mooring. The C/PIES antenna will allow for the detection and separation of low-mode internal waves propagating from multiple directions, while the mooring will measure velocity and vertical displacement signals of five or more vertical modes. The array has been designed, and the data will be examined, in cooperation with a numerical modeling team (see the Buijsman et al. NOPP submission from our collaborators at USM, University of Michigan; U-M, and the Naval Research Laboratory; NRL) allowing for skill-testing and direct comparison with the global internal-tide resolving models that serve as inputs to regional models of the coastal ocean. The IWR Array deployment will be made in collaboration with the NASA JPL Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) Cal/Val mooring deployments in 2023 off the California coast. Part of the proposed IWR Array deployment period will coincide with SWOT’s 90-day “fast-sampling” phase which will provide once per day repeat sampling and the IRW Array will extend (in time) and augment (in space) NASA’s internal wave observations planned for the Cal/Val location.