Arvor and Provor profilers for BioSWOT-Med arrived at OGS

The BioSWOT-Med campaign is an interdisciplinary and international campaign. The National Institute of Oceanographic and Applied Geophysics (OGS), Italy, is a partner of the BioSWOT-Med campaign and contributes to WP2 Physical processes.

The Arvor profiler is a set-ballasted float that acts as a virtual mooring. It produces salinity, temperature and pressure profiles up to 400 meters. The Provor profiler collects salinity, temperature and pressure during its drift and ascending phases. The two instruments will help in resolving surface currents of small-scale fronts and in characterizing water masses of each side of the front.

The Arvor and Provor profilers will be used together with a larger set of instruments to respond to the main scientific objectives of the BioSWOT-Med campaign for what concerns the physical processes. Namely: the the spatio-temporal characterization of fine-scales (waves, eddies, front and their interactions) and their relationship with turbulence; the fine-scale parameterization of turbulence; the vertical fluxes of nutrients and impact on budget of surface layer.

They will be used in conjunction with a larger set of instruments in the framework of an adaptive Lagrangian sampling strategy (Figure 1) supported by the use of the  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 carried out, among others, through the use of innovative instrumentation.

Arvor profiler (left) and Provor profiler (right)