Year-long measurements of rain and windspeed from Argo floats

Stephen C. Riser
School of Oceanography
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195 USA

Measurements of rainfall and wind speed have been collected from Argo floats deployed in the Bay of Bengal and the eastern equatorial Pacific. In the Bay of Bengal case, where the measurements lasted for well over one year, the data show a seasonal monsoon cycle consistent with both climatology and data from moored weather buoys and coastal meteolological stations. The measurements are collected using an Acoustic Rain Gauge, an addition to profiling floats that listens for characteristic acoustic signatures of wind and rainfall while drifting at depth between profiles. In the cases reported here, data were collected and processed at approximatly 3-hour intervals along the float drift path. It is suggested that this relatively low-cost addition to profiling floats could in the future provide useful climate data for improving surface flux estimates in remote parts of the world where few data presently exist.