Operationalizing Surface Piercing Profilers

High vertical resolution profiles of surface waters with multi-parameter sensor packages are valuable for understanding coupled physical-biogeochemical ocean processes. Typically, these profilers are only able to be used for short periods of time due to lack of ruggedness, reliability, automation, and battery life. Over the last three years, the Ocean Observatories Initiative has partnered with WET Labs to improve a set of WET Labs Thetis profilers so that OOI can operate six of them year-round in waters up to 100 m in depth. These profiles sample 1-16 Hz while rising 25 cm/s. They include 8 instruments with more than a dozen sensors, and they have room for more. A smart winch on-board these profilers compensates for wave-driven heave, which enables them to surface and telemeter data via Iridium in up to 3 m waves, 10 m/s winds, and 40 cm/s mean water currents. Multiple firmware and electronics upgrades enable these profilers to automatically recover from problems, or at least put themselves in a state that minimizes the chance of loss/damage and allows for remote query & control via acoustic modem from a neighboring surface mooring. These and other improvements enable the system to capture periods of the year such as the beginning of the annual coastal upwelling-dominated period without fear from damage by spring storms. This contribution will show the new features, the overall capabilities, and the limitations of these profilers, and it will show what data are available from them through OOI.