Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS) Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS) is a collaborative effort between the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Hawaii. The purpose of KESS is to understand the processes that govern the variability of and the interaction between the Kuroshio Extension and its recirculation gyre. To do this it will employ a large array of in-situ measurements from combination pressure gauge and inverted echo sounders, current meter moorings, and profiling floats, together with satellite altimeter and sea surface temperature data. [website]
	ULTRAMOOR The prototype ULTRAMOOR design is a subsurface mooring that supports 10 (or more) discrete acoustic current meters. Each current sensor is equipped with a small, low power acoustic transmitter that transfers compressed data from its instrument to a receiver located below the euphotic zone (nominally at 500-m depth). The initial long-term test of the ULTRAMOOR prototype was begun on November 20, 2001 offshore Bermuda. Retrieval of the system is scheduled for November 2004. [website]
	Line W Located on the continental slope south of New England (near 40ºN, 70ºW) Line W is one component of a long-term climate observing system that is positioned to quantify variability in the deep limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC). Combining an array of moored instruments with shipboard observations, Line W is designed to directly measure the time dependence of volume transport, advection of property anomalies, and propagation of topographic Rossby waves and boundary waves in the equatorward flowing deep western boundary current (DWBC). These measurements are key to clarifying the deep ocean response to variability in high-latitude air-sea exchanges and, ultimately, the ocean's role in global climate variability through changes in its transport of heat and freshwater. [website]