The Bermuda Testbed Mooring (BTM) Project: A Community Resource for Science and Technology

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The overall objective of this project is to continue to provide the oceanographic community with a critical resource for scientific and technological studies, namely a deep-ocean mooring platform and core interdisciplinary measurements. Time-series programs off Bermuda (Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study or BATS) have been effectively used since 1988 to make exciting discoveries, to increase our knowledge and understanding of a variety of ocean processes, and to develop and test models. Objectives of the BTM program include: collection of high temporal resolution, interdisciplinary data, which will complement ship-based BATS data (and data collected through other specialized programs in the vicinity; facilitate studies and enhance understanding of the roles of higher frequency and episodic phenomena (gravity waves to mesoscale and beyond) in affecting the variability of upper ocean biogeochemistry, ecology, and physics, and 3) provide the BTM's high frequency, long-term data sets to investigators who will be developing and testing sub-seasonal, seasonal, and longer-term disciplinary and interdisciplinary models designed to include high frequency and episodic phenomena. BTM will also serve as a model for future autonomous global ocean observatory system platforms. Technological objectives include: supplying data which can be used for groundtruthing data for passing floats, drifters, gliders, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) as well as satellites to provide a platform for the testing and utilization of emerging sensors, instrumentation, and data communication technologies, and reduce dependence on ship-based operations (and therefore cost) as new sensors, platform technologies, and communication systems come on line. The BTM program is multi-faceted and already serves a large number of oceanographers and students ranging from technologists to observationalists (in situ and remote sensing) to modelers. The continuation of the BTM program will be used to accelerate observational capacity at a time when knowledge of the ocean is of growing societal interest and concern.