Ocean Surface Current Measurements in the Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment

The Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) is a NASA Earth Ventures Suborbital Investigation designed to test the hypothesis that oceanic frontogenesis and the kilometer-scale ("submesoscale") instabilities that accompany it make important contributions to vertical exchange of climate and biological variables in the upper ocean. These processes have been difficult to resolve in observations and models. A necessary step toward testing the hypothesis was to make accurate measurements of upper-ocean velocity fields over a broad range of scales and to relate them to the observed variability of vertical transport and surface forcing. To achieve that, we used aircraft-based remote sensing, satellite remote sensing, ships, drifter deployments, and a fleet of autonomous vehicles. This paper will provide a brief overview of the S-MODE measurements, with a special focus on surface current measurements.