Friday, September 27, 2024 - 3:10 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Chase Ocean Engineering Lab
Title: Rapid Characterization of Air-Sea Fluxes and Marine-Atmospheric Boundary Layer Structure
Presenter: Nathan Laxague
Location: Chase 105
Improved understanding of air-sea interaction is needed to aid the development of numerical weather and climate models and the empirical parameterizations which define their boundary conditions. Field observations of air-sea fluxes and the structure of the marine-atmospheric boundary layer (MABL) are of particular usefulness to the development of new numerical tools which might aid in the planning of offshore wind energy farms. In this seminar, I'll present on the recent efforts of our group to design, construct, and deploy sensing platforms---a buoy and an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV)---in order to make measurements of turbulent air-sea fluxes and the structure of the MABL. Through a combination of physical design, high-throughput telemetry, and near real-time processing, we are able to determine the turbulent fluxes measured at the buoy as each UAV flight is being performed, allowing for rapid quality control and data interpretation. These capabilities provide the means for thorough and efficient characterization of air-sea interaction and MABL structure
