Long Term Salinity Measurements

海洋表面盐度（SSS）是海洋水循环强度的关键指标。它还对上层海洋的稳定性产生强烈影响，从而影响其垂直混合的倾向，从而储存或释放热量和二氧化碳。因此，它已经成为了解地球的一个重要变量。美国气候系统。然而，我们关于SSS的数据是有限的，由于生物污染的挑战，盐度一直是一个难以自主测量的数据。PI申请资金用于继续开发自清洁电导率传感器（以及相关的温度和压力测量），目标是从各种海洋平台获得稳定、长期的盐度测量。在全球漂流者计划的漂流者身上部署这种传感器将使获得的SSS观测数量有一个巨大的飞跃，从而对改善对全球水循环的了解作出重大贡献。需要重新设计以尽量减少尺寸和制造成本。此外，他们还提出了一个适用于滑翔机和剖面机的剖面模型。他们的目标是制造一种传感器，能够持续监测漂浮物的表面盐度，以提高我们对水循环的理解。更广泛的影响：该项目开发了一种新的能力，可以在大多数平台（如漂流船、系泊和AUV）上部署长期稳定的低功率盐度传感器。它对全局漂移程序很有用。它对于提供从SMOS（正在运行）和Aquarius（将于2011年6月发射）获得的卫星盐度的地面真实数据非常有用。可靠的长期海洋表面盐度测量对于准确地限制全球水循环的加速变化至关重要，这既是预测的，也是似乎正在发生的，以应对全球变暖。新的传感器设计应该是商业上可行的，从而扩大了这个建议的范围，包括更多的用户，如全球海洋观测项目。

Sea surface salinity (SSS) is a key indicator of the intensity of the water cycle over the oceans. It also has a strong influence on the stability of the upper ocean, which affects its propensity to mix vertically and thereby store or release heat and carbon dioxide. Thus, it has emerged as an important variable for understanding the Earth?s climate system. However, our data base on SSS is limited, salinity has always been a difficult measurement to make autonomously due to the challenges of biological fouling. The PI's request funding to continue development of a self-cleaning conductivity sensor (and associated temperature and pressure measurements) with the goal of obtaining stable, long-term salinity measurements from a variety of ocean platforms. Deployment of such sensors on the drifters of the Global Drifter Program would provide a quantum leap in the numbers of SSS observations obtained and thereby make a substantial contribution to an improved understanding of the global water cycle requires a redesign to minimize the size and the manufacturing cost. In addition they propose to make a profiling model suitable for use on gliders and profilers. Their goal is to produce a sensor that will enable continuous monitoring of surface salinity from drifters in order to advance our understanding of the water cycle.Broader Impacts: This project develops a new capability to deploy low power salinity sensors with long-term stability in most of the platforms like drifters, moorings and AUV's. It's useful for the global drifter program. It is very useful for providing ground truth for the satellite derived salinity from SMOS (operational) and Aquarius (to be launched in June, 2011). Reliable long-term salinity measurements of the surface ocean are critical to accurately constrain the accelerating changes in the global water cycle, which are both predicted and appear to be occurring in response to global warming. The new sensor design should be commercially viable, thereby extending the scope of this proposal to include many more users such as with global ocean observing programs.