COMPATIBILITY OF AIRCRAFT AND SHIPBORNE INSTRUMENTS USED IN AIR-SEA INTERACTION RESEARCH

Abstract

On June 16, 1966, an experiment was performed off the east coast of Florida that involved two research aircraft, one from the Naval Oceanographic Office and one from ESSA's Research Flight Facility, and the USCGSS Peirce, aboard which were two scientists from ESSA's Sea Air Interaction Laboratory, and the Weather Bureau Airport Station at Jacksonville, Fla. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the comparability of data for air-sea interaction research as determined by aircraft temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind sensors; airborne IR radiometers; a tethered boundary layer instrument package, radiosondes, rawinsondes, and dropsondes. Results showed generally good agreement (within listed instrumental accuracies) between comparisons of aircraft and radiosonde temperature and humidity observations, fair agreement of wind observations, and very poor comparisons between dropsondes and radiosondes. The sea surface temperature readings obtained by the airborne radiation thermometer aboard the Navy aircraft were well within ±0.4° C. operational accuracy of the instrument when compared with bucket temperature measurements taken aboard the Peirce. Whether the accuracies of these presently available instruments are good enough for mesoscale and macroscale ocean-atmosphere interaction investigations now being planned will have to await studies of the environments in which these experiments will take place.