process the data to provide a standard bathyther- 

 mograph report in the form of a punched paper 

 tape to be fed into the ship's radio transmitter. 



The expendable bathythermograph has made it 

 possible for naval ships to take temperature/depth 

 observations while underway. The Navy's Fleet 

 Numerical Weather Central collects some BT data 

 from fishing and research ships in the Pacific, 

 which are transmitted to the Bureau of Com- 

 mercial Fisheries station at Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography. The Navy also collects some 

 synoptic BT data in the North Atlantic from 

 commercial vessels. The Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries, in cooperation with the Navy, regularly 

 obtains temperature structure data, by use of the 

 expendable bathythermograph from the Matson 

 Line freighter Califomian, between San Francisco 

 and Honolulu."* Tests have also been made using 

 tuna fishing craft. 



Ships of opportunity are also used in the 

 collection of surface temperature, salinity, and 

 current data using drift bottles in a BCF program 

 in the western tropical Atlantic and Caribbean. 

 The approach used in the expendable bathyther- 

 mograph is adaptable for other sensor systems. 

 Experiments have been conducted with a soil- 

 bearing meter and a velocimeter. It is technically 

 feasible to develop a family of instruments using a 

 similar "free-fall probe" approach. In other cases 

 the probe may be too expensive for expendable 

 use or require actual samples for analysis. In these 

 cases it may be feasible to employ a conductor 

 cable of sufficient strength to recover the sensor. 

 This permits the measurement of a number of 

 other parameters. 



2. Other Developments 



Other recent developments that enhance the 

 capabiUty of a ship to collect vital data at sea are 

 the several versions of the salinity-temperature- 

 depth recorder (STD). One version is self- 

 contained and battery powered; it records salinity, 

 temperature, and depth data on a graphic plotter. 

 This is a reusable instrument; another version 

 records data on magnetic tape. A later model of 



^An analysis of data collected in this program is 

 contained in: Saur, J. F. T. and Dorothy D. Stewait, 

 1967; Expendable Bathythermograph Data on Sub- 

 surface Thermal Structure in the Eastern North Pacific 

 Ocean. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Special 

 Scientific Report -Fisheries No. 548, Washington, D.C. 70 

 pp. 



this instrument transmits a signal to the ship by 

 cable, where it is recorded on a paper graph. 



Under preliminary development by the Navy is 

 a portable oceanographic data collection "pack- 

 age" for use aboard ships of opportunity, with 

 emphasis on development of an expendable 

 temperature-salinity-depth unit. 



Equipment to provide "winds aloft" eco- 

 nomically from a moving ship is in an advanced 

 state of development. Previous methods of track- 

 ing a radar target involved the measurement of 

 elevation angles, requiring anterma stabilization. 

 The new technique eliminates this requirement, 

 and the antenna stabilization problem has been 

 made tractable. The objective of this program has 

 been to produce an instrument suitable for instal- 

 lation aboard merchant ships. 



B. Drifting Buoys 



Drifting buoys, long in use, have recently been 

 proposed to achieve a grid spacing suitable for 

 numerical weather forecasting. Floating buoys can 

 be monitored from ships, shore, or by satellite. 



Figure 18. Launching STD (salinity, tempera- 

 ture, depth) and sound velocity sensor. 

 (ESSA photo) 



11-40 



