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Waiting Their Turn

Large orange floats line the edge of the WHOI dock. In a couple of weeks, they’ll board the R/V Neil Armstrong bound for the Coastal Pioneer Array, an ocean observatory about 100 miles south of the New England coast. These floats, known as “subsurface flotation spheres,” are one component of a profiler mooring. A sphere is attached to the mooring’s underwater cable to give it the buoyancy it needs to stay as vertical as possible. That in turn allows a sensor-laden device called a wire-following profiler to travel up and down the mooring cable, measuring temperature, salinity, oxygen, and other seawater characteristics. (Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)