Description: During the Atlantic Expedition 1965 (IQSY) with the research vessel "Meteor" an extensive aerological programme was performed in order to investigate the lower trade wind regime. In this study energy and mass transport in the atmospheric layer below the top of the trade inversion was estimated on the basis of 4 to 8 radiosonde and radar wind measurements. The experiment took place on an anchoring station at the intersection of the Equator and 30° W longitude from September 12 to October 11, 1965. With the aid of simple model assumptions a mean sinking rate through the inversion of 540 m/d was derived. This value is determined mainly by the net radiative cooling and the prerequisite of no heating due to condensation. From the temporal variations of the daily averages of the thermal energy content within the inversion layer and the height of its boundaries it seems to be evident that changes of a quasi-equilibrium of mean subsidence and turbulent mixing at the inversion base are compensated by vertical motions of the inversion. The effect of strong mixing at the inversion base is supported by the fact that remarkable turbulent upward transport of latent heat is required at this level.

Description: To estimate the disturbing influence of a ship's hull and superstructure on measurements of wind speed, air temperature and humidity and surface water temperature, data taken from R.V. "Meteor" are compared with simultaneous measurements from a meteorological buoy. It is shown that almost no systematic errors occur in the measurement of water temperature while the wet bulb temperature is generally indicated to high by 0.1°C to 0.2°C. However, due to large heating of the ship's body during daytime, a systematic increase of dry-bulb temperature is observed which also leads to erroneous values of relative humidity. During nighttime, the errors in dry-bulb temperature remain small. Wind-speed measurements, in particular, are critical from board a ship. The "Meteor" data show that the ship's values are systematically smaller than the measurements at the buoy, the difference increases with increasing wind speed. Although WARSH et al. (1972) found the same behaviour with R. V. "Discoverer", the result cannot be generalized, and similar investigation are recommended for any ship the data of which will be used for more extended evaluations. The errors are examined concerning their influence on the computation of turbulent heat fluxes from the bulk-aerodynamic equation. The result shows that, even if the diurnal march of dry-bulb temperature is corrected, the fluxes are still erroneous due to the wind-speed error. The conclusion, therefore, is that data taken from a ship are in general inappropriate for the more detailed investigation of surface-energy fluxes, unless a good correction function for all the parameters involved is known.