WP5 - Autonomous tools

The results obtained in the WP5 'Italian fleet of autonomous instruments' represent a major step forward in the establishment of a stronger and more organized observational infrastructure.

In the glider infrastructure the fleet of instruments was increased in size, and the organization of the laboratory and the workshop where the gliders are ballasted and refurbished was improved. A major effort was also directed towards the establishment of an IT network, to automate real-time data visualization for the piloting support and the data transfer to the DACs. The entire IT infrastructure has been tested during dedicated campaigns at sea.

As part of the WP general problems of glider sampling were addressed: an analysis of data post-processing methods was performed, including the technical derivation of variables, the projection and binning of the profiles, the thermal lag correction, the processing with wavelet techniques, and the removal of aliasing effects and Doppler smearing.

The WP5 includes activities related to other autonomous vehicles, such as the wave glider (WG), which was operated during a two-week oceanographic mission in the Gulf of Naples. The main purpose was to evaluate the combined use of a WG with different satellite data, in order to obtain a complete and reliable monitoring of the sea surface layer oceanographic characteristics. The data collected by the WG highlighted the oceanographic characteristics of the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, including the thermo-haline gradient between coastal and off-shore waters and the presence of cyclone-anticyclone systems.

The Italian autonomous instrument fleet also includes drifters. For those instruments specific techniques were developed to automate the data quality control. These programs were tested on data collected in a dedicated RITMARE campaign.

Temperature measured with a Glider in the Quarnero Gulf
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