frontiers
in Marine Science
ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 13 September 2019
doll: 10.3389/mars.2019.00578
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updates:
Development of Surface Drifting
Buoys for Fiducial Reference
Measurements of Sea-Surface
Temperature
Marc Le Menn’*, Paul Poli®, Arnaud David?, Jeröme Sagot®, Marc Lucas*,
Anne O’Carroll*, Mathieu Belbeoch® and Kai Herklotz’
Metrology and Chemical Oceanography Department, French Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service (Shom), Brest,
Trance, * Meteo France, Centre de Metsorologie Marine, Brest, France, © nke Instrumentation, Hennebont, France, * Collecte
Localisation Satellites (CLS), Ramonville-Saint-Agne, France, * European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological
5atellites (EUMETSAT), Darmstadt, Germany, ° JCOMM in situ Observations Programme Support Centre (JCOMMOops),
DPlouzane, France, ” Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH), Hamburg, Germany
This paper presents the conception and the metrological characterization of a
new surface drifting buoy, designed to comply with the requirements of satellite
sea-surface temperature (SST) measurement validation and to link, per comparison,
these measurements to the Sl. The reliability of this comparison is ensured by a
‘High Resolution Sea-Surface Temperature (HRSST) sensor associated with a pressure
sensor in a module called MoSens. This module can be calibrated in a laboratory to
ensure traceability to the SI with an expanded uncertainty inferior to 0.01°C. This paper
estimates the response time of the HRSST sensor based on theoretical considerations
and compares the results with measurements carried out in a calibration bath. Once
ntegrated in a number of buoys, the resulting network will contribute to create a fiducial
reference measurement (FRM) network. The pressure sensor can be used as an indicator
of the sea-state, which is important to consider in order to understand the comparison
with satellite data. Two buoy prototypes have been tested at sea during several weeks
and compared in situ to reference thermometers, demonstrating their reliability and the
tIrueness of temperature measurements.
OPEN ACCESS
Edited by:
Leonard Pace,
Schmidt Ocean Institute,
United States
Reviewed by:
Shinya Kouketsu,
Japan Agency for Marine-Earth
Science and Technology, Japan
R. Venkatesan,
National Institute of
Ocean Technology, India
*Correspondence:
Marc Le Menn
Marc.lemenn@shom. fr
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Ocean Observation,
a sectHon of the journal
Frontiers in Marine Science
Received: 08 January 2079
Accepted: 30 August 2079
Published: 13 September 2019
Keywords: drifting buoys, surface temperature, reference, satellite. measurement uncertainty, SST
INTRODUCTION
Sea-Surface Temperatures (SST) play a key role in the understanding of the ocean-atmosphere
interactions, in the characterization of the mesoscale variability of the upper ocean, and also
as inputs of numerical weather prediction systems. They have traditionally been measured
in situ, and since the 1970s, they are also monitored with a global coverage by satellite-
vorne radiometers (e.g., Prabhakara et al., 1974; Milman and Wilheit, 1985). These instruments
measure the radiance emitted by the sea surface. These radiance measurements are sensitive
:O Ocean skin temperature, but are also sensitive to the atmospheric physical state and
constituents, and to the sea state. In order to determine more precisely these sources
of inaccuracy, methods have been developed to trace radiance measurement uncertainties
(Woolliams et al., 2016, 2018; Banks et al., 2017; Merchant et al., 2019). However, to
ensure the validity of retrieved SST, comparisons with independent in situ measurements are
Citation:
2 Menn M, Poli R David A, Sagot J,
Lucas M, O’Carroll A, Beibeoch M
and Herklotz K (2019) Development of
Surface Drifting Buoys for Fiducial
Reference Measurements of
Sea-Surface Temperature,
Front. Mar. Sci, 6:578.
dot 10.3389/mars_ D2079.00578
-rontiers in Marine Science | www.frontiersin.orc
September 2019 | Volume 6 | Article 578
