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M159 – Aquí y Ahora

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 […]

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Tropical Atlantic vs. Labrador Sea

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 […]

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The Western Tropical Atlantic, a Meeting Place for Waters Coming from Different Regions all Around the Globe

Figure 1: Mean distributions of temperature and oxygen (salinity is overlayed in magenta) along the 35°W meridian –from the Brazilian coast northward. These sections represent the average of 12 previous cruises (1990-2004) along this route and nicely show the different patches of properties characterizing different water masses (Herrford et al., 2017).

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 […]

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Crazy Cat Lady

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 […]

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Replacing the 10°S Ocean Observatory

Recovering a mooring. Photo by Martin Visbeck.

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 […]

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Shapes of the Ocean: The Beginning of a New Journey

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 […]

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What is a CTD?

The first day on a ship is always very exciting. So many new things to see, explore and learn. One of the main instruments that we will be using on the expedition is the CTD. CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature and Depth and refers to some of the sensors that the CTD-Rosette System carries. At […]