Hey All!

Well Silbo has been back in the water now for over 4 days now, and although he has been making steady progress, it has been quite slow, however we are moving further away from the island traffic which is becoming less of a threat.

Ship Traffic for March 11

With the way point set on Madeira, we have been at the will of a strong head current that is the product of the strong clockwise spinning warm eddy to our north and another to the east combined with the large counterclockwise spinning cold eddy to our south.  These eddies are shown below in the three road maps we are using: HYCOM, NLOM/NCOM, and MYOCEAN.

 

HYCOM Sea Surface Height and Currents for March 11

NLOM SSH and NCOM Currents for March 11

MYOCEAN 96 hour averaged forecast of SSH and Currents

The first two images of the hycom and nlom/ncom models both show the solar systems of eddies that are the cause of Silbo’s strong head current.  The third image from myocean is a 96 hr futurecast of the sea surface height and currents conditions that shows the persistence and strength of eddies over the next three days.

The eddies have even caused similar patterns in the salinity, temperature and density seen here in the hycom imagery:

HYCOM density for March 11

HYCOM Salinity for March 11

HYCOM Temperature for March 11

Similarly, Antonio has provided us with the MYOCEAN forecast for the salinity at 1000m.

MYOCEAN Salinity for 1000m

At 1000m depth, we see a number of ‘meddies’ or eddies produced from the introduction of super saline water of the Mediterranean colliding with the fresher water of the North Atlantic.  These will be important to keep an eye on for piloting as we may try experiments of flying between 500-1000m to avoid unfavorable currents closer to the surface.

For now, we agree that the best course of action is to change the waypoint to the south to try and get out of this strong head current and to move our way through the solar system of eddies to best continue on our way to the Canaries

New proposed way point of 34 N 23 W

Force Wind Sea and Honor

Nilsen, Antonio & Oliver