Conrad Luecke
CTD watch stander
Finally, after one false start and a short delay waiting for
a replacement part to fix the ship incinerator, leg two of the GO-SHIP P-18
cruise has begun!
The NOAA ship Ron Brown is now steaming back to our line to
pick up where leg 1 left off. During our
two day transit, the crew and scientists are taking time to prepare for our
various tasks, get on our respective watch schedules, and reflect on an amazing
time during our port call in the tiny but beautiful island of Rapa Nui (Easter
Island). During our stay, we swapped out
about half our scientific team (including me) and those of us that are new have
been very busy catching up to speed and preparing for our first station.
Over the next 6 weeks we will continue south along 103E to
the Antarctic Shelf (~70S), extending the hydrography transect Leg 1 began. Many
of us on board are eager to get out of the oligotrophic subtropical gyre and
into the Southern Ocean! The Southern
Ocean is an extremely unique and (arguably) the most exciting part of this
transect. As we cross the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), we will observe
the deep, carbon-rich (read: old) waters of the interior North Pacific upwell
towards the surface, driven by wind-forced divergence. This process brings up nutrients
and carbon from the deep ocean, driving biological productivity, and also fuels
the global meridional overturning circulation. However, the same wind energy
that drives this circulation will be beating down on our boat as we travel
south so we are all preparing for a rougher ride here on out.
On leg two, I will be one of two CTD watch standers. I am
excited to be contributing to our understanding of the ocean and climate and to
be at sea for the first time on a research vessel! The CTD is an instrument that measures
conductivity (for salinity), temperature, and depth from the surface to the seafloor
(~3000–5000 meters). In addition to the
CTD, our instrument package is busy with many other sensors, as well as Niskin
bottles to collect water samples. The
purpose of these instrument casts will be to construct a cross-sectional
database of the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of the
ocean. Data from this cruise, part of an
international, global scale effort will be used by thousands of scientists from
all over the world.
For now here is a photo of the R/V Ron Brown anchored off shore
of one of Rapa Nui’s famous carved rock Moai.
We started a cruise hashtag! To find more updates (including pictures!) from the cruise, search #P18DataMachine on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram.
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