The BioSWOT-Med campaign is interdisciplinary and international. The National Institute of Oceanographic and Applied Geophysics (OGS) in Italy is a partner in the BioSWOT-Med campaign and contributes to WP2 Physical Processes.
The Arvor profiler is a weighted float that acts as a virtual mooring. It produces salinity, temperature and pressure profiles down to 400 metres. The Provor profiler collects salinity, temperature and pressure during its drift and ascent phases. The two instruments will help to resolve the small-scale surface currents of the fronts and characterise the water masses on either side of the front.
The Arvor and Provor profilers will be used with a wider range of instruments to meet the main scientific objectives of the BioSWOT-Med campaign in terms of physical processes. These include: spatio-temporal characterisation of fine scales (waves, eddies, fronts and their interactions) and their relationship with turbulence; fine-scale parameterisation of turbulence; vertical fluxes of nutrients and the impact on the surface layer budget.
They will be used in conjunction with a wider range of instruments as part of an adaptive Lagrangian sampling strategy (Figure 1) supported by the use of SPASSO software (Software Package for an Adaptive Satellite-based Sampling for Oceanographic cruises).
Bioswot-med blog
Figure 1: The adaptive Lagrangian sampling strategy of the BioSWOT-Med campaign will be implemented,
among other things, through the use of innovative instruments.
The Arvor profiler (left) and the Provor profiler (right)