Today we are right in the centre of a high pressure system, so everything is really calm. No winds, no big waves and, as it rained yesterday, no more salt covering the deck, make me sometimes forget that we are actually right in the middle of the South Atlantic. But we feel Brazil coming nearer, as the water temperatures are already 25°C and last night we had to change the clock again for the fourth time.
As we are on a German Research Vessel, the food is normally typical German like the “Kartoffelpuffer” (potato pancakes) we had for dinner and most students never had them before. However, for lunch we had ostrich which is a traditional South African dish as I learned during our short stay in Cape Town.
During our science meeting, Karl told us a lot about air sea fluxes. As they influence the density of water, they have a great impact on the currents in the oceans. To measure these turbulent fluxes is always difficult, so Karl was really happy to show us some data from the cruise so far that looked quite good.
My topic for this cruise is the Vema Channel which is located of the coast of Brazil. The channel connects two deep basins and is one of the few passes for Antarctic Bottom Water to flow northwards. Antarctic Bottom Water is the densest and coldest water mass in the whole ocean. Since the 1970’s a warming trend of this water mass is observed and we want to measure temperature and salinity in 4800m depth as well to analyse this trend further.
I want to finish today’s blog with some nice sunset pictures as everything is as usual.
Photo: Christina Schmidt
Photo: Christina Schmidt
Thanx Chrstina. It is nice to hear what you guys are doing.