But not in the typical sense…
Today Lauren Cooney of TWR gave us an update on the distances/speeds required to reach Madeira within the window of our friends from PLOCAN arriving there to deploy the drifters and provide an optical inspection.
Fig 1. Estimation plots of Arrival in Madeira and the Canary Islands
Shown in the above plots, we must keep an average speed of less than .23 m/s in order to not over shoot the proposed window and miss the rendezvous at Madeira.
Unfortunately, it looks like the surface currents are well against our favor at the moment..
Fig 2. NCOM Currents overlayed with NLOM Sea Surface Height
Fig 3. Hycom Density with geostrophic currents
Fig 4. Hycom Salinity with geostrophic currents
Fig 5. Hycom Sea Surface Height with geostrophic currents
Fig 6. Hycom Sea Surface Temperature with geostrophic currents
Seen above in the images from hycom and nlom/ncom models, the currents at the surface are in a pretty steady flow to the south east in the direction of Madeira. However if you look at the post from yesterday showing currents at depth, we see that sub surface the currents change direction resulting in the north eastern flow shown by silbo. This is also possibly due to a warm core eddy that appears in sea surface height in Figure 2 (ncom/nlom) and Figure 5 (hycom).
Fig 7. MODIS satellite imagery of Chlorophyll Concentration
Fig 8. MODIS Satellite imagery of Sea Surface Temperature
The above images are from the modis satellites showing sst and chlorophyll concentrations for the area. Chlorophyll showing a pretty large bloom up on the northern shores of Spain but relatively low activity in the vicinity of Silbo. Meanwhile the sst shows the gradual cooling as we move away from the equator.
Fig 9. Silbo's Track on the first leg of the Challenger Mission
Finally, I just wanted to take a step back and admire how much distance Silbo has covered since last June as we are now less than 450 km to our destination on the shores of the Canaries.
Nilsen Strandskov & Antonio Ramos