Wind, waves, and surface currents in the Southern Ocean: observations from the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition

The Southern Ocean has a profound impact on the Earth's climate system. Its strong winds, intense currents, and fierce waves are critical components of the air-sea interface and contribute to absorbing, storing, and releasing heat, moisture, gases, and momentum. Owing to its remoteness and harsh environment, this region is significantly undersampled, hampering the validation of prediction models and large-scale observations from satellite sensors. Here, an unprecedented data set of simultaneous observations of winds, surface currents, and ocean waves is presented, to address the scarcity of in situ observations in the region - https://doi.org/10.26179/5ed0a30aaf764 (Alberello et al., 2020c) and https://doi.org/10.26179/5e9d038c396f2 (Derkani et al., 2020). Records were acquired underway during the Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition (ACE), which went around the Southern Ocean from December 2016 to March 2017 (Austral summer). Observations were obtained with the wave and surface current monitoring system WaMoS-II, which scanned the ocean surface around the vessel using marine radars. Measurements were assessed for quality control and compared against available satellite observations. Tnhe data set is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of observations of surface processes for the Southern Ocean and is intended to underpin improvements of wave prediction models around Antarctica and research of air-sea interaction processes, including gas exchange and dynamics of sea spray aerosol particles. The data set has further potentials to support theoretical and numerical research on lower atmosphere, air-sea interface, and upper-ocean processes.

Automated summary

The Southern Ocean plays a crucial role in the Earth's climate system. However, due to its remoteness and harsh environment, the region is significantly undersampled. By providing unprecedented data of simultaneous observations, this study aims to address the scarcity of in situ observations in the region and support improvements in wave prediction models around Antarctica and research on air-sea interaction processes.