EurOCEAN 2000 - Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee

IMPROVED MICROSTRUCTURE MEASUREMENT
TECHNOLOGIES FOR MARINE NEAR SURFACE FLUX STUDIES
(MITEC)
532
Adolf Stips
CEC Joint Research Centre
Space Applications Institute
Marine Environment, TP272, I-21020 Ispra, Italy
SUMMARY
The project MITEC was focussed on the development of an
advanced system for measuring, processing, and evaluating
oceanographic parameters - stratification, mixing,
fluorescence, near surface microstructure and others -, that
are essential to determine near surface fluxes which are
required for a correct description of physical and biological
processes in the surface boundary layer of natural waters.
Following objectives we could meet:
• Development of a free rising microstructure profiler measuring the near surface
microstructure of temperature and current shear (turbulence) with the highest possible
resolution. Other sensors providing information on bio-optical and standard oceanographic
parameters can be integrated.
• Development, adaptation and qualification of algorithms prescribing, how to carry out
the measurements and evaluate the measured data.
• Development, testing and qualification of software for data acquisition, calculation of
basic turbulence parameters and data visualisation, designed specially for near surface
uprising measurements. This software shall work routinely under field conditions.
• Laboratory and field measurements with the prototype to evaluate performance and to
define the final product. Application studies that demonstrate the potential of the developed
measuring system and data evaluation, for investigating near-surface flux processes in the
water and the influence of small-scale physical processes on the dynamics of marine
ecosystems.
The final deliverable should be a complete end-to-end system for the assessment of important
physical and biological parameters, for gathering the data to evaluate the surface boundary
layer processes. This final deliverable could only partially achieved, because the project was
terminated after 17 months total duration. But the goal of the shared cost action programme
MITEC, to develop and construct a highly advanced, integrated system for the measurement,
processing, evaluation, and dissemination of oceanographic and limnic near-surface data was
reached. The developed system is now on the market and it has the characteristics to become
the world best commercial available profiler. Most of the work concerning the dissemination of
results is ongoing and will be completed only within a time frame of about two years.