Ocean is not only home to wildlife that we can observe with our own eyes, such as big mammals, fishes and seaweed. There are also small living organisms, which we do not always know about, because we do not see them with our naked eyes. In Ocean Science, to see beneath the ocean surface, the […]
It has been more than two weeks now that we started our research cruise M159 from Recife to Mindelo. I am surprised how quickly I got used to living and working on board of the Meteor. After only a few days, it feels as if I have been on the research vessel for weeks because […]
En la soledad de un laboratorio a horas de la medianoche (hora que por cierto disfruto) y café de por medio a bordo del buque de investigación Meteor navegando hacia el próximo punto de muestreo es que redacto este blog. La calma del buque y la música de Rammstein en mis oídos me ayudan a […]
Being on a research cruise in the tropical Atlantic and Labrador Sea has more similarities than you might think. First of all, we take measurements of the same current, the so-called “Deep Western Boundary Current”. This current originates in the Labrador Sea and transports cold waters from the north all the way to Brazil. It […]
On board of the Research Vessel Meteor, we are currently sailing through the western tropical Atlantic. This region is particularly interesting for me, Josephine Herrford, and other oceanographers, as it represents a crossroad for different currents transporting water from all kind of remote regions around the globe. In oceanography, “water masses” are a fundamental, but […]
Water sampling in the TropicsPhoto by Martin Visbeck Being on a research vessel is not always easy. Working on deck can be either too hot, too cold, or even too dangerous. One part of the daily work on the Research Vessel (R/V) Meteor is to collect water samples from the Niskin bottles attached to the […]
I am sitting in a beach chair on the monkey deck and watching the sun going down. I see the pink and orange coloured clouds, the red sun, the continuous moving waves and feel the ceasing winds, the calmness of a sunset. What a wonderful end of the day. I completely forget how long this […]
German itself can be quite a challenge, and imagine if you have to speak german sailors language… This means using words that are only used at sea. Here, you will see that it is not that difficult with a little help ! The deployment and monitoring of the CTD (stands for Conductivity, Temperature and Depth) […]
The GEOMAR ocean observatory at 10°S is an installation of instruments in the ocean with the goal to obtain long times series of ocean changes. At 10°S off the Brazilian coast the observatory consists of four long moorings that measure currents, temperature and salinity. The array was first installed between 2000 and 2004 and after […]
The ocean provides several services to the world, including climate regulation, provisioning of living resources and biodiversity. Oceans are responsible for most of the oxygen produced on earth; they soak up the heat and transports warm water from the equator to the poles, and cold water from the poles to the tropics. In addition, oceans […]