High-resolution measurements of essential climate variables in the North Sea from the autonomous surface vehicle HALOBATES during RV Heincke cruise HE598

The autonomous surface vehicle HALOBATES measured Essential Climate Variables (ECV), such as sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS), during the RV Heincke cruise HE598 in the German Bight. HALOBATES captured the SST and SSS at seven depths with a high vertical resolution of about 10 cm, from the near-surface layer (NSL) (between 30 and 100 cm) and the sea surface microlayer (SML) (upper millimeter). Conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) sensors measured temperature and conductivity (for salinity calculation) via a flow-through system on HALOBATES. Additional temperature sensors were mounted on HALOBATES to contact the water at six depths in the NSL directly. Salinity was corrected with discrete samples, and biases between the sensors were removed. Two data loggers with several weather stations on the catamaran captured important weather variables during operation time. HALOBATES was operated between 30 April 2022 and 23 May 2022.