The aim of this NERC-funded project was to make direct measurement of the turbulent air-sea fluxes of CO2, sea-spray aerosol, sensible and latent heat and momentum in order to improve the parameterisation of these fluxes in terms of mean meteorological and sea-state variables.

In order to do this we installed a range of instrumentation, including the autonomous air-sea flux system ‘AutoFlux’ and a directional wave radar ‘WAVEX’, on the British Antarctic Survery ship, the RRS James Clark Ross.

The WAGES instruments operated continuously for three years, from May 2010 to July 2013, and obtained data in a wide range of conditions particularly the poorly-understood high wind speed regime. The figure shows the cruise track during the three-year measurement campaign.

WAGES was a joint project with the University of Leeds. WAGES was preceded by a similar three-year (2006–2009) continuous flux measurement campaign on the Ocean Weather Ship Polarfront as part of the UK-SOLAS project HiWASE.

Website: https://projects.noc.ac.uk/wages

PI: Dr Margaret J Yelland
Email: m.yelland at noc.ac.uk

Dates
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Funding

NERC – Discovery Science

Aim

The aim of this NERC-funded project was to make direct measurement of the turbulent air-sea fluxes of CO2, sea-spray aerosol, sensible and latent heat and momentum in order to improve the parameterisation of these fluxes in terms of mean meteorological and sea-state variables.

Ship systems