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Lending a Hand

Carol Anne Clayson, WHOI physical oceanographer and director of the Ocean and Climate Change Institute, holds a tag line during test deployment of an expendable spar buoy (X-Spar). Clayson and senior scientist John Toole conceive the buoys to be cost-effective platforms carrying instruments that measure conditions at a key juncture in the global climate system: the interface between the atmosphere and upper ocean. The buoys are designed to provide real-time data from inaccessible or inhospitable locations such as the Southern Ocean, much as Argo floats and Ice-tethered Profilers do from the open ocean and ice-covered seas.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)