The last week of our cruise has begun, and the eddy hunt is aiming for an eddy in the East of Trinidad and Tobago, Eddy2. The trick with catching Eddy2 is to first estimate his dimensions by using sea level anomaly maps which give insight on surface eddies that are often overlying deeper eddies, like […]
Chasing clouds
Part 1: Why chase clouds Imagine you would like to have a nice barbeque on Sunday but the weather report seems quite undecided whether it will rain or not. You wonder: “How hard can it be to predict if it rains? It seems like the forecasts are always off!”. As scientists, we face this challenge […]
Die Meeresoberfläche im Fokus
(English version below) Es dreht sich und dreht sich und dreht sich: 24/7 rotiert unser Doppler-Radar nun auf der MARIA S. MERIAN und sammelt Daten. Dabei misst es die Rauigkeit der Meeresoberfläche, aus der Parameter wie Seegang, Strömung und Wind bestimmte werden können. Unser Radar ist ein modifiziertes Navigationsradar (auch marines X-Band-Radar genannt). Herkömmliche nautische […]
Up in the air
A couple of days ago we started heading north again. We are now in an area where also the research vessel Meteor and the research plane HALO are operating. HALO circles every second day above our heads measuring both with its instruments on board as well as by releasing dropsondes. Those small meteorological devices descend […]
Rotola, Rantola e Sputa
(Eine zweite Version auf deutsch findest Du im unteren Teil des Blogbeitrags!) Non dormo. Come potrei del resto, sono le otto. Sono stesa nel letto e sotto di me, intorno a me, il mare sbatte, rantola e sputa. Sento la forza dell’acqua schiantarsi sul guscio di questa nave, immagino la spuma, ondeggio. E poi i […]