Hey All,
Silbo continues the never ending story of the challenger mission as he maintains his course on the way to the western side of Madeira.
Fig 1. Silbo now 330 km from the shores of Madeira
Conditions all seem to be alright for our little droid as he continues making smooth dives to 1000m with no evident sign of biological interference, calm weather, and a path clear of any shipping vessels.
Marine conditions from our three data sets, hycom, myocean, and ncom/nlom all continue to show the strong current flowing south from our location, which we are seeing push Silbo slightly to the south. However, we have turned on the current correction feature on this afternoon so Silbo will show signs that he is fighting the current to try and stay on a straight path to the current way point just to the south of Madeira. Below is the imagery from our ocean models:
Fig 2. HYCOM Density for April 1st
Fig 3. HYCOM Salinity for April 1st
Fig 4. HYCOM Sea Surface Height for April 1st
Fig 5. HYCOM Temperature for April 1st
In the HYCOM images above (Fig 2-5), we can see how strongly the geostrophic flow of the ocean dictates the salinity, temperature and density of the surface waters as we can see evidence of the eddies in all four images.
Fig 6. Myocean Surface Conditions (temperature, salinity, eastern component currents, currents)
Fig 7. Myocean Sea Surface Height
Fig 8. Myocean temperature at depth
Fig 9. Myocean Salinity at depth
Fig 10. Myocean Eastward componenet currents at depth
Fig 11. Myocean Currents at depth
In the above images (Fig 6-11), we see the surface conditions and that of which is at 200m, 600m, 800m, and 1000m form the MyOCEAN models of temperature, height, salinity, currents, and the overall eastward flow of the water. These all continue to show a similar story to the hycom models of showing the eddy filled progeny of the tail end portion of the Gulf Stream.
Fig 12. NCOM Current Model and NLOM Sea Surface Height
Finally the ncom/nlom model of the land scape also shows the same as the above figures of the whereabouts of the eddies and similar movements of the currents.
Overall, we will wait and see how Silbo now flies these currents with the addition of current correction on as we continue on our way towards Madeira, remembering in the back of our minds that we are aiming to be there around the 17th- 20th.
Nilsen & Antonio