Abstract
A fast measuring system has been designed and built to determine the oceanic thermal microstructure at the ocean–air interface. The system consists of a profiler sonde, which amends through the uppermost few meters of the ocean with a time of typically 1 m s−1 and carries a fast temperature sensor with a time constant of 0.5 ms and a surface detector. The data rate is 8000 measurements per second and the achieved resolution in temperature is 0.01 K. The instrument has been designed for rough off-shore treatment and to avoid any disturbance of the boundary layer during measurements.
Some measurements of the “cool skin” are shown from in situ experiments.
