Bay of Bengal

Vertical spatial coordinates; Date and time; Vertical velocity of the water column (currents); Optical backscatter; Light absorption in the water column; Temperature of the water column; Chlorophyll pigment concentrations in water bodies; Dissolved oxygen parameters in the water column; Concentration of organic matter in water bodies; Visible waveband radiance and irradiance measurements in the water column; Density of the water column

Fluorometers; radiometers; optical backscatter sensors; salinity sensor; data loggers; water pressure sensors; water temperature sensor; dissolved gas sensors

Five ocean gliders were deployed during cruise SSD-024 as part of the Bay of Bengal Boundary Layer Experiment (BoBBLE), a collaborative project between India and the UK, funded jointly by Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India, and Natural Environmental Research Council, UK, through the “Drivers of Variability in the South Asian Monsoon” programme. The major objective of this project is to understand the east-west contrast in the upper layer characteristics of the southern Bay of Bengal and its interaction with the summer monsoon. The major observational objectives of SSD-024 were to profile the hydrography along 8°N in international waters and to carry out a 10-day time series at 8°N, 89°E. 14 scientists from India and 8 from the UK made up the scientific contingent of SSD-024. Five Seagliders were successfully deployed in the southern Bay of Bengal from ORV Sindhu Sadhana during the BoBBLE cruise. These autonomous underwater vehicles fly in a continuous repeating sawtooth pattern from the surface down to a maximum depth of 1000 m. They are all equipped with conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) sensors. Additional sensors include dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence and backscatter, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and microstructure sensors. Three Seagliders (including one microstructure enabled glider) are from the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK glider facility. The remaining two Seagliders are from the Marine Autonomous Robotics Systems (MARS) national UK facility. All five Seagliders were deployed and piloted by UEA and associated personnel.

British Oceanographic Data Centre
Joseph Proudman Building 6 Brownlow Street
Liverpool
Merseyside
L3 5DA
United Kingdom