We describe the development of a small profiling float, the ALAMO (Air-Launched Autonomous Micro-Observer), that observes upper-ocean structure over a year. These floats can be launched from any aircraft equipped with an “A-sized” launch tube, or from the door of any other aircraft. Profiling floats have found wide use in the oceanographic community, from their original design in the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (Davis et al., 1992) to their current widespread usage in the Argo program (Riser et al., 2016). The utility of profiling floats derives from their relative affordability and their autonomous nature once deployed. The ALAMO float works on the same principles as the ALACE (Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer) profiling float designed by Davis et al. (1992), which developed into the SOLO (Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangian Observer) profiling floats used in the Argo program today (Davis et al., 2001). The ALAMO float represents a natural progression of those earlier designs.

Jayne, S.R., and N.M. Bogue. 2017. Air-deployable profiling floats. Oceanography 30(2):29–31, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2017.214.

Davis, R.E., T.J. Sherman, and J. Dufour. 2001. Profiling ALACEs and other advances in autonomous subsurface floats. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 18:982–993, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(2001)018​<0982:PAAOAI>2.0.CO;2.
1. Davis, R.E., D.C. Webb, L.A. Regier, and J. Dufour. 1992. The Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer (ALACE). Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 9:264–285, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(1992)009​<0264:TALCE>2.0.CO;2.
2. Goni, G.J., R.E. Todd, S.R. Jayne, G. Halliwell, S. Glenn, J. Dong, R. Curry, R. Domingues, F. Bringas, L. Centurioni, and others. 2017. Autonomous and Lagrangian ocean observations for Atlantic tropical cyclone studies and forecasts. Oceanography 30(2):92–103, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2017.227.
3. Klatt, O., O. Boebel, and E. Fahrbach. 2007. A profiling float’s sense of ice. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 24:1,301–1,308, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH2026.1.
4. Mrvaljevic, R.K., P.G. Black, L.R. Centurioni, Y.-T. Chang, E.A. D’Asaro, S.R. Jayne, C.M. Lee, R.-C. Lien, I.-I. Lin, J. Morzel, and others. 2013. Observations of the cold wake of Typhoon Fanapi (2010). Geophysical Research Letters 40:316–321, https://doi.org/10.1029/2012GL054282.
5. Riser, S.C., H.J. Freeland, D. Roemmich. S. Wijffels, A. Troisi, M. Belbéoch, D. Gilbert, J. Xu, S. Pouliquen, A. Thresher, and others. 2016. Fifteen years of ocean observations with the global Argo array. Nature Climate Change 5:145–153, https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2872.
6. Sanabia, E.R., B.S. Barrett, P.G. Black, S. Chen, and J.A. Cummings. 2013. Real-time upper-ocean temperature observations from aircraft during operational hurricane reconnaissance missions: AXBT demonstration project year one results. Weather and Forecasting 28:1,404–1,422, https://doi.org/10.1175/WAF-D-12-00107.1.
7. Sanford, T.B., J.F. Price, and J.B. Girton. 2011. Upper ocean response to Hurricane Frances (2004) observed by profiling EM-APEX floats. Journal of Physical Oceanography 41:1,041–1,056, https://doi.org/10.1175/2010JPO4313.1.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.