Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction Pilot Project in the Gulf of Mexico under CIGoM Buoy Network.

CIGoM Buoy Network in the Gulf of Mexico was implemented and operated between 2016 and 2019. While two type of buoys were designed and built, in this work we focus on spar buoy (BOMM, as Spanish acronym for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology Buoy) to directly estimate ocean surface wave full directional spectrum as well as the momentum flux between the ocean and the atmosphere. A detailed description of the buoy and main characteristics of sensors deployed in three BOMM is given. We aim to better understand the O-A momentum flux under non-equilibrium conditions, specifically when sudden wind changes occurred typically associated with atmospheric fronts passages over the region of interest. The influence of swell is analyzed in detail for cases when locally generated waves are being developed under moderate wind speeds. Of particular importance is the remote observations of the wave field under those conditions, by means of Synthetic Aperture Radar images of the ocean surface. We approach the subject by making use of a quasi-linear inversion algorithm (Krogstad et al., 1994) with the procedure already advanced and proposed by Vachon et al. (1994), in order to estimate the directional wave spectrum. The relation between SAR derived wave spectra and the directly estimated momentum fluxes are addressed.