Hey all
Courage dear friends !!
I see that finally, irene is flying the NY area as tropical storm, and in spite of coastal damages, heavy rain and electric power cuts, the NY area is not so affected as expected. Really happy that all of you be safe and danger is finally ending. I would also like to congratulate the Rapid Response Emergency Protocole implementation of all the actors: the eastern coast´s people and the administration, the security and protection forces, the research centres and Universities… It has been a great example to the world.
SILBO: Anyway, first, congrats to all of you great team. Silbo is finally sailing the 40s. And it has not been easy. In fact, challenger 1 is not being an easy mission. It is not the same to flight a transoceanic glider in longitude (ru17, scarlet, cook..) than in latitude (silbo). Marine Climate lines appear one behind the another (Figure 1 and Figure 2). It looks that our brave droid, is crossing the northern side of the gulf stream branch (storm passing line, thermohaline fronts..), and this, definitely has been really an area of disagreement between global model outputs (all of us agreed) and silbo ground true.
Figure 1.- SST field, 28th aug 2011.
Figure 2.- Salinity field, 28th aug 2011.
The N-S flight is definitely and significantly affected by normal/axial W-E, E-W events (storm passing lines,.. ) A possible way to sort it out in better conditions is flying the ROM areas where models (especially the atmospheric forcing models that feed the outputs) are really better and more precise (2 km2, hourly) than
global models do. If all follows like now, we would have a great oportunity to show the ROM capacities from azores to Canaries when we touch the ROM european domain. However, “this, dear friends, is another history… so it may be counted in another occasion” (never ending history, by Michael Ende). For the moment: we would have to focuse on touching the 2000 km line…the 2500 km…the 3000 km.
The storms (our never ending history of 1 each 3 days of mission) and the associated energy in the border line (coincinding with the N side of the gulf branch) seems extremely dynamic and energetic. Just a little bit of patient to cross it (Figure 3). However ir will be really interesting to follow the passing line of irene to the NE atlantic during the next few days…/more information about irene in http://maracoos.org/irene/
Figure 3.. Storm fields on 28 aug 2011. 10.00 am (gmt).
However look in the current fields update that just passed this line (48-49 N), current trend becomes stable and SW SE S oriented. to our destiny… to Azores (Figure 4, Figure 5 and Figure 6).
Figure 4.- SSH above geoid field, 28th aug 2011.
Figure 5.- Current field, 28th aug 2011.
Figure 6.- Meridional North (red) South (blue) current field. 28th aug 2011.
Finally, today, an exception,
we wish you all FORCE & HONOUR (no SEA no WIND today..)
Antonio Ramos & Nilsen Strandskov.