What is COARE?

The TOGA COARE Intensive Observing Period (IOP) occurred from 1 November 1992 through 28 February 1993. During those four months, nearly 1200 people from more than 20 nations conducted more than 700 days of ship operation, launched nearly 12,000 rawinsondes, completed 125 aircraft flights, and maintained continuous operation of 30 moored instrument systems. In the months prior to the IOP and in the months since, some of those participants and others maintained and operated a few key atmospheric sounding systems and a few special oceanographic moorings as part of the TOGA COARE enhanced monitoring. The participants directed their individual and collective efforts during the intensive and enhanced periods toward four TOGA COARE science goals, aimed to describe and understand:

• The principal processes responsible for coupling of the ocean and the atmosphere in the western Pacific warm pool system

• The principal atmospheric processes that organize convection in the warm pool region

• The oceanic response to combined buoyancy and wind stress forcing in the western Pacific warm pool system

• The multiple-scale interaction that extend the oceanic and atmospheric influence of the western Pacific warm pool system to other regions and vice versa