ASIS - A new Air-Sea Interaction Spar buoy: Design and performance at sea

This paper describes a new, compact buoy, the Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASI S), capable of reliably and accurately measuring directional wave spectra, atmospheric surface fluxes, and radiation in the the open ocean. The ASIS b uoy is a stable platform and has low how disturbance characteristics in bot h atmospheric and oceanic surface boundary layers. The buoy has been deploy ed for sea trials in the waters off Miami, Florida; in the northeastern reg ion of the Gulf of Mexico; and in the northwestern Mediterranean. The acqui red measurements of directional wave spectra, momentum and heat fluxes, and profile data-as well as general meteorological and oceanographic parameter s-obtained from the buoy are well suited for enhancing research on air-wate r interfacial processes, wave dynamics, remote sensing, and gas transfer. I n this paper the design is described and the performance of the buoy using field data is characterized.