Project NTAS - Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station for air-sea flux measurement
| Location Map |
 |
| NTAS surface mooring deployed near 15° N, 51°W. |
| Surface Buoy |
 |
| UOP technicians servicing the NTAS buoy at sea. |
Overview
The Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) project for air-sea flux measurement was conceived in order to investigate surface forcing and oceanographic response in a region of the tropical Atlantic with strong SST anomalies and the likelihood of significant local air-sea interaction. The primary science objectives of the NTAS project are to to determine the in-situ fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum, and then to use these in-situ fluxes to make a regional assessment of flux components from numerical weather prediction models and satellites.
Beginning in March, 2001, we have maintained a fully-instrumented surface mooring at 15°N, 51°W to collect accurate time series of surface meteorology and upper ocean temperatures, velocities and salinities. The data collected will improve our understanding of the air-sea fluxes and sea-surface temperatures in the Northwest Tropical Altantic.
Sponsors
The NTAS experiment is supported through the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Ocean Research (CICOR), a partnership between the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Principal funding is provided by the NOAA Office of Climate Observations (OCO). Additional support is provided by the WHOI Ocean and Climate Change Institute (OCCI) and the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.
Last updated: March 1, 2008