Hydrographic Observations at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Hawaii Ocean Time-Series Site (WHOTS): 2021 - 2022, Data Report #17

In 2003, Robert Weller (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution [WHOI]), Albert Plueddemann (WHOI), and Roger Lukas (the University of Hawaii [UH]) proposed to establish a long-term surface mooring at the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) Station ALOHA (22°45'N, 158°W) to provide sustained, high-quality air-sea fluxes and the associated upper ocean response as a coordinated part of the HOT program, and as an element of the global array of ocean reference stations supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Climate Observation. The WHOTS-17 mooring was deployed on August 26, 2021 (WHOTS-17 cruise) and was recovered on July 25, 2022 (WHOTS-18 cruise). The cruises were aboard the R/V Oscar Elton Settle. The WHOTS-18 mooring was deployed on July 24, 2022, during the WHOTS-18 cruise and was recovered on June 19, 2023, during the WHOTS-19 cruise. This report documents and describes the oceanographic observations made on the WHOTS-17 mooring for nearly eleven months and from shipboard measurements during the two cruises when the mooring was deployed and recovered. Sections II and III include a detailed description of the cruises and the mooring, respectively. The sampling and processing procedures of the hydrographic casts, thermosalinograph, and shipboard ADCP data collected during these cruises are described in Section IV. Section V includes the processing procedures for the data collected by the moored instruments: SeaCATs, MicroCATs, Moored ADCPs, and VMCM. Plots of the resulting data and preliminary analysis are presented in Section VI.