ASISAA new Air-Sea Interaction Spar buoy: design and performance at sea

This paper describes a new, compact buoy, the Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS), capable of reliably and accurately measuring directional wave spectra, atmospheric surface fluxes, and radiation in the open ocean. The ASIS buoy is a stable platform and has low flow disturbance characteristics in both atmospheric and oceanic surface boundary layers. The buoy has been deployed for sea trials in the waters off Miami, Florida; in the northeastern region of the Gulf of Mexico; and in the northwestern Mediterranean. The acquired measurements of directional wave spectra, momentum and heat fluxes, and profile data--as well as general meteorological and oceanographic parameters--obtained from the buoy are well suited for enhancing research on air-water interfacial processes, wave dynamics, remote sensing, and gas transfer. In this paper the design is described and the performance of the buoy using field data is characterized.