A Software Package for an Adaptive Satellite-Based Sampling for Oceanographic Cruises (SPASSOv2.0): Tracking Fine-Scale Features for Physical and Biogeochemical Studies

Abstract During the past decade, increasing interests arose in understanding the role of fine scales (processes of the order of tens of kilometer) on ocean energy and biogeochemical budgets. However, in situ evidence of these processes remains poorly documented and represents only few specific ocean conditions. To fill this gap, new adaptive sampling feature-oriented strategies need to be developed. A possible approach is to target fine-scale features, identified from space, with in situ surveys. The Software Package for an Adaptive Satellite-based Sampling for Oceanographic cruises (SPASSO) package provides real-time analysis of satellite-derived products and diagnostics to identify fine-scale biophysical dynamics of any given study area. Besides the visualization of satellite products, the software computes a large variety of Eulerian and Lagrangian diagnostics inferred from near-real-time altimetry to accurately direct oceanographic sampling toward fine-scale features. Over the last decade, this adaptive sampling methodology was successfully developed as showcased by several previous cruise examples. In 2023, the groundbreaking Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission fosters the development of a new, improved and fully automated version of the software (SPASSOv2.0) to address the need to target SWOT scales during in situ experiments.