Energy is imparted to the ocean by the wind, temperature differences between the ocean and the atmosphere, pressure forces due the horizontal differences in the density of ocean water, and finally by the rotation of the earth itself.
Continue reading What can we learn from big whorls and little buoys? (Part 1)
After spending several months preparing our ocean gliders activities very carefully (see http://greenedge-expeditions.com/takuvik-glider-team-carries-test-deployments-slocum-gliders/), we finally left Quebec city on board the Amundsen icebreaker. We spent the entire week of transit making final preparations for deployment. We installed all the communication gear. We measured what we call the dark offsets of each of the scientific sensors (i.e. the baseline noise measurements). We ran, for the nth time, simulated missions under a virtual ice floe (either the gliders have this capability of simulating missions, or we use a pocket-sized computer which is identical to that inside the glider).
