Working Group on Surface Fluxes In situ issues Elizabeth Kent National Oceanography Centre, Southampton

WGSF: in situ issues  OceanObs'09 Community White Paper  Fairall, C. & Co-Authors (2010). "Observations to Quantify Air-Sea Fluxes and Their Role in Climate Variability and Predictability" in Proceedings of OceanObs’09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society (Vol. 2), Venice, Italy, September 2009, Hall, J., Harrison D.E. & Stammer, D., Eds., ESA Publication WPP-306.   Plenary Paper  Surface Energy, CO 2 Fluxes And Sea Ice - led by Gulev and Josey  09A02b gulev_etal_OceanObs09_revision_final.pdf

WGSF: in situ issues  OceanSITES should be expanded  Maintain existing network measuring radiative fluxes, mean meteorology and precipitation  Priorities for expansion: subpolar, high latitudes (high variability) and regions with severe weather conditions  Improved technology required to measure direct fluxes, including gases and particles  More high quality routine flux measurements  Requires more co-ordination of activities Mainly Research Vessels but also selected commercial ships  Some vessels making similar measurements to OceanSITES  Others with direct fluxes, currents, directional wave spectra and other sea state information  Focused on high variability regions and gaps in OceanSITES network

WGSF: in situ issues  Voluntary Observing Ships should be maintained and enhanced as a flux observation network  Focus on good quality observations, well characterised with metadata  Need for all elements, including visual clouds, weather and sea state  Improved technology  Increased power and bandwidth for moorings  More robust and capable platforms  Improved & low power gas flux sensors (inc. CO 2, O 3, SO 2 and DMS)  Accurate, low cost, precipitation sensors  Improved humidity sensors for long term deployments

WGSF: in situ issues  Flux observing best practice  WGSF "Flux handbook" ftp://ftp.etl.noaa.gov/user/cfairall/wcrp_wgsf/flux_handbook/ ftp://ftp.etl.noaa.gov/user/cfairall/wcrp_wgsf/flux_handbook/  Standards for sensor choice, siting, calibration and metadata  Improvement of flux parameterisations  Continual process  Observations needed under all conditions  Wide variety of related information required  Better models of ocean near surface temperature change with depth

WGSF: in situ issues  A range of independent, gridded flux datasets is needed  Range of input data sources  Improved construction techniques required, with uncertainties  Wider range of fluxes and related variables (inc. e.g. biogeochemical, particles, whitecap fraction)  Clearly documented, metadata to allow appropriate choice of product for application  Data stewardship  Benefits of aggregation of high quality flux data  Ease of access should be improved  Again, more metadata on dataset characteristics and suitable applications.

WGSF: other issues  Satellite data priorities:  Improved precipitation  Improved near surface air temperature and humidity  Whitecap characteristics  Improved sampling for vector winds (inc high wind and rain)  Improved temporal coverage and higher spatial resolution for passive and active microwave sensors, esp. in coastal regions  Improved validation and parameterisation for NWP and reanalyis model fluxes  Collaboration of observationalists, dataset developers and modellers  High quality flux datasets needed  Facilitated by SURFA, set up by WGSF and WGNE