AutoFlux: an autonomous system for the direct measurement of the air-sea fluxes of CO2, heat and momentum

AutoFlux is an autonomous system for making direct measurements of the air-sea exchanges of CO2, momentum and heat. Such measurements are usually restricted to short, dedicated air-sea interaction cruises on research ships which last only a few weeks. In contrast, AutoFlux was recently deployed continuously on the RRS Discovery for two years and is now currently part of a three year measurement programme on the Norwegian weather ship Polarfront. The instrumentation on Polarfront also includes two different wave measurement systems and digital cameras. The various systems are described and initial results presented.