Tracking RAFOS-enabled, under-ice Argo profiling floats using a Kalman smoothing technique
Abstract
As observations under sea ice from autonomous Lagrangian instruments expand, tracking their locations becomes increasingly important. The two principal means for recovering under ice positions are interpolation between GPS fixes that might be separated by many months, and acoustic tracking. Acoustic tracking is preferable if feasible because of its temporal resolution. Environmental factors such as surface sound channels and jagged sea ice attenuate acoustic signals in the polar regions, while operational considerations make polar sound sources expensive and difficult to deploy. Because of this, acoustic tracking data may be incomplete. A Kalman smoother has been developed to reconstruct error-minimized float tracks and variance ellipses using all possible position data. This algorithm is being compared to prior solutions in ice-free regions using the usual RAFOS processing software. Preliminary results of both approaches are presented for a set of previously untracked, acoustically-enabled, ice-covered Argo profiling floats in the Weddell Sea. These float tracks can then be used to diagnose under-ice circulation and position variability for floats under the ice.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.C31B0748C
- Keywords:
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- 0738 Ice;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 4813 Ecological prediction;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICALDE: 4901 Abrupt/rapid climate change;
- PALEOCEANOGRAPHY