In the past decade, OTECH has carried out experiments in most of the World Ocean, including the North and South Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Indian Oceans, the Straits of Florida, and the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas. These experiments have ranged from studies of the general ocean circulation such as the Madagascar Current, SYNOP (Synoptic Ocean Prediction), STACS (Subtropical Atlantic Climate Studies), WATTS (Western Atlantic Thermal Transport Study), ACCP (Atlantic Climate Change Program), WESTRAX (Western Tropical Atlantic Experiment), and California Current experiments, to studies of oceanic heat flux (STACS, Tropic Heat), ocean ventilation in the Caribbean(CaribVent), deep water formation in the Mediterranean (MEDOC87) and interdisciplinary studies (SEFCAR). This work has been funded by a wide range of agencies, including the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Minerals Management Service, and the State of Florida.
OTECH maintains a large inventory of standard equipment, including approximately 30 Aanderaa, 45 vector-averaging (VACM) and 6 vector-measuring (VMCM) current meters, 6 acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs), 30 acoustic mooring releases and 3 PEGASUS acoustic current profilers. In addition the group is involved in the development or expanded use of new instrumentation, including RAFOS (autonomous, acoustically tracked subsurface) floats, and satellite based (using Global Positioning System or GPS) acoustic current profilers.