ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION
Support for this publication is provided by Ocean Networks Canada, the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing
Program, the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean, and the US Arctic
Research Commission.
Editor: Ellen Kappel
Assistant Editor: Vicky Cullen
Layout and Design: Johanna Adams
Published by The Oceanography Society
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Single printed copies are available upon request from info@tos.org.
ON THE COVER
Developed by scientists at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine
Environment, University of Oldenburg, the Sea Surface Scanner (S3) is a radio-
controlled catamaran designed to detect biogenic and ubiquitous surface films
called the sea surface microlayer (SML). The SML is typically less than 1 mm thick
and controls air-sea interactions due to its unique biogeochemical properties rel-
ative to the underlying water. S3 uses a set of partially submerged glass disks that
continuously rotate through the sea surface, skimming and wiping the SML from the
disks. The principle of this collection technique was developed several decades
ago. The continuous sample stream is diverted to a set of onboard flow-through
sensors (e.g., temperature, conductivity, fluorescence, pH, pCO2) and to a bottle
carousel triggered by a command from the pilot. S3 is capable of mapping the SML
with high temporal and spatial resolution and collecting large amounts of samples
for broader biogeochemical assessment of the SML. Since 2015, S3 has been
deployed in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic Oceans, including in open leads near
the North Pole, providing a unique large data set of biogeochemical features of the
ocean‘s surface. Photo credit: Alex Ingle/Schmidt Ocean Institute
PREFERRED CITATION
Kappel, E.S., S.K. Juniper, S. Seeyave, E. Smith, and M. Visbeck, eds. 2021. Frontiers
in Ocean Observing: Documenting Ecosystems, Understanding Environmental
Changes, Forecasting Hazards. A Supplement to Oceanography 34(4), 102 pp.,
https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2021.supplement.02.