Survey, 2009-08-08, Central Asia

Aral Sea 2009, the shrinking basin

A single-day deployment on the remnant Aral Sea in August 2009, at the hypersaline far end of the salinity range the method has been carried across

Published figures

Interpolated fields from the campaign, reproduced as issued. Plate titles carry the LIFL-9 under its original designation, UFL-9.

Interpolated chlorophyll a field mapped along the lidar track, Aral Sea, Aral Sea, 2009 — Fig. 1Chlorophyll a

Interpolated CDOM field mapped along the lidar track, Aral Sea, Aral Sea, 2009 — Fig. 2CDOM

Interpolated total suspended solids field mapped along the lidar track, Aral Sea, Aral Sea, 2009 — Fig. 3TSS

By 2009 the Aral Sea had contracted to a fraction of its former extent, shallow, hypersaline, and easily stirred by wind into a turbid, sediment-laden state. On 8 August a LIF lidar ran a single-day track across the remnant basin, a water body few in-water instruments have ever measured and one that has kept retreating in the years since.

The campaign sits at the far end of the range the method has been carried across, in water several times the salinity of the open ocean and at the opposite extreme from the oligotrophic Atlantic legs. Its constituent record is not published here; what this entry holds is the route, the date, and the fact that the instrument was on that water while there was still water to measure.