Introduction to the Southern Ocean optical drifters

A number of drifters have been deployed in the Southern Ocean since 1994. Two types of drifters have been used: physical drifters that measure the location and sea surface temperature, and optical drifters that measure the same parameters as well as downwelling irradiance at 490 nm just above the sea surface and upwelling radiance at seven visible wavebands just below the sea surface.

NEW! (Jan 2002)
Several optical drifters were recently in the water collecting data as part of the Southern Ocean Iron Experiment (SOFeX).
Their progress and preliminary data are available from the update website.

This set of documents describes the instrument characteristics, deployments, data processing and data format. Access to the data is also provided.

This study is part of an ongoing research effort in the Southern Ocean by the Oregon State University (O.S.U.) Remote Sensing Ocean Optics (ORSOO) group.

Webpage by Jasmine S. Bartlett, Oregon State University.