The expedition starts

The RRS James Cook sailed on the 9th March from Santa Cruz de Tenerife. We will service and replace 16 moorings, and 8 landers and deploy 2 Argo floats between the Canary Islands and the USA. During the next 5 weeks our expedition will give us more insight into the long term changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.

The AMOC and the RAPID 26°N array

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a large-scale oceanic circulation comprising of currents that carry warm, shallow water northwards (red in figure) and returns cold deep-water southwards (blue in figure). Variations in the strength of the AMOC have significant impact on the earth’s climate system, in particular, it is crucial in maintaining the relatively mild climate of Northwest Europe.

The science party consists of Ben Moat (Chief Scientist), with Eleanor Frajka-Williams, David Snead, Lidia Carracedo, Emmy McGarry, Fraser Goldsworth (Phd Student University of Oxford) and Matt Clark (PhD student University of Southampton).
We are currently working on the eastern array and moving towards the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Keep posted for more updates.

Scientists working in the main lab of the RRS James Cook

Comments

Never a dull moment

I entered the field of oceanography in order to spend more time doing science whilst out at sea so I’m always looking for my next ocean adventure. Therefore, I was delighted to be asked to help with oxygen analysis on the RAPID cruise, which services the 15 moorings and landers that make up the RAPID array, measuring the Atlantic Meridional Ocean Circulation (AMOC). The main reason I love going on research cruises is that the one thing they have in common is that whilst the science is underway there’s very rarely a dull moment. The RAPID cruise has quite a varied schedule but a typical day often unfolded as below. Although RAPID is a mooring cruise, a couple of days started relatively early in order to release an Argo float. Argo floats are free-drifting instruments that can take vertical profiles of temperature and salinity every 10 days for up to 10 years and beam their data straight to on online database ( http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/ ). There are currently ~3800 of these fl

Moorings: The workhorse of the RAPID project

Matt Clark, SPITFIRE PhD Student, University of Southampton Twitter: @Ocean_MattC The RAPID project relies on an array of moorings at 26N: anchored lengths of rope or wire with various scientific instruments attached at specific points. These moorings are left anchored for around 18 months before being recovered on the next cruise. Moorings vary in size and composition depending on where they are deployed and what we aim to measure. Apart from seabed lander platforms, RAPID’s shortest moorings are about 600m and the longest are over 5000m long. RAPID recovers and replaces these moorings approximately every 18 months. Moorings are always deployed and recovered top-first. On deployment, the ship goes forward slowly, at about half a knot, allowing the mooring to stream behind. The bridge and deck crew are in constant radio communication. Once at the release location, the bridge radios the deck crew, who drop the anchor. An intro to instruments SBE MicroCAT: MicroCATs form the

Overturning Oceanography on the RRS James Cook

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