FS Poseidon Cruises P343, 04 Oct-17 Oct 2006 and P345, 28 Nov-07 Dec 2006. RAPID-MOC Autumn 2006 Eastern Boundary moorings refurbishment cruises

This report describes the Autumn 2006 Eastern Boundary moorings refurbishment cruises for the RAPID-MOC programme Monitoring the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5°N. Two cruises are reported here: FS Poseidon cruise P343 (4 OCT – 17 OCT) and FS Poseidon cruise P345 (28 NOV – 7 DEC). Both cruises sailed to and from Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.Six moorings were recovered during P343 and 13 deployed. Parafil failures on EB1 and EB2 (5000m long moorings located near 24°N, 24°W) during deployment necessitated immediate recovery. This led to an emergency cruise P345 to recover EB2 and to redeploy EB1 and EB2. P343 was also notable for the first deployment of seven mini-moorings consisting of a single microcat between 500m and 50m depth

RV Seward Johnson Cruise SJ08-03 Leg 2, 22-30 Apr 2008: RAPID-MOC Spring 2008 Western Boundary moorings refurbishment cruises

This report describes the mooring operations conducted on the RV Seward Johnson cruise SJ08-03 Leg 2 between 22nd April and 30th April 2008.These mooring operations were completed as part of the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) RAPID and RAPID-WATCH programmes to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5°N. The primary purpose of this cruise was to service the Western Boundary section of the 26.5°N mooring array first deployed in 2004 during RRS Discovery cruises D277 and D278 (SOC cruise report number 53).Cruise SJ08-03 leg 2 sailed from Freeport, Grand Bahama to Ft. Pierce, Florida and serviced the moorings deployed on RB0701 (along with 2 landers deployed on RB0602). This cruise is the fourth annual refurbishment of the Western Boundary section of an array of moorings deployed across the Atlantic in order to set up a pre-operational prototype system to continuously observe the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). This array will be further refined and refurbished during subsequent years.The instrumentation deployed on the array consists of a variety of current meters, bottom pressure recorders, CTD loggers and Inverted Echo Sounders, which, combined with time series measurements of the Florida Channel Current and wind stress estimates, will be used to determine the strength and structure of the MOC at 26.5°N. (http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapidmoc

State of the Climate in 2012

International audienceEditors note: For easy download the posted pdf of the State of the Climate for 2012 is a very low-resolution file. A high-resolution copy of the report is available by clicking here. Please be patient as it may take a few minutes for the high-resolution file to download