Float Deployments During Regional Cruises

6th Euro-Argo Users Meeting, 4-5 July 2017, Paris, France
Ten years ago we began deploying Argo drifters during regional cruises, and this has been repeated for several regions: the Canary and Cape Verde Basins, the western equatorial Atlantic and the Brazil-Malvinas Confluence (BMC). Suring a field experiment, several floats were deployed in different areas of the study region, such as in both sides of a frontal system. The floats were always simultaneous with a CTD cast whose data was immediately transmitted to the Euro-Argo centre. In all instances the floats provided additional data for characterizing the study area. Here we report on floats deployed during a recent cruise (RETRO-BMC) carried out in the BMC, between 8 and 28 April 2017 onboard the R/V Hespérides. The vessel departed from Ushuaia (Argentina) and arrived to Santos (Brazil). A total of 6 floats were deployed during the cruise, four of them in the frontal system itself and two of them in the Malvinas and Brazil Currents before arrival and after departing the BMC. Those floats deployed near the frontal system had a high-frequency cycling of once per day down to 2000 m during the first 20 days of operation, providing for a total of 80 additional CTD casts in the area of study, synoptic with the cruise CTD casts. These experiments are a good example of a highly beneficial synergetic effort of Euro-Argo and the research teams
VA-DE-RETRo CTM2014-56987-P