RV Seward Johnson Cruise SJ08-03 Leg 2, 22-30 Apr 2008: RAPID-MOC Spring 2008 Western Boundary moorings refurbishment cruises

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Description/Abstract

This report describes the mooring operations conducted on the RV Seward Johnson cruise
SJ08-03 Leg 2 between 22nd April and 30th April 2008.
T
hese mooring operations were completed as part of the United Kingdom Natural
Environment Research Council (NERC) RAPID and RAPID-WATCH programmes to
monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5°N. The primary purpose of
this cruise was to service the Western Boundary section of the 26.5°N mooring array first
deployed in 2004 during RRS Discovery cruises D277 and D278 (SOC cruise report number
53).

Cruise SJ08-03 leg 2 sailed from Freeport, Grand Bahama to Ft. Pierce, Florida and serviced
the moorings deployed on RB0701 (along with 2 landers deployed on RB0602). This cruise
is the fourth annual refurbishment of the Western Boundary section of an array of moorings
deployed across the Atlantic in order to set up a pre-operational prototype system to
continuously observe the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). This array
will be further refined and refurbished during subsequent years.
T
he instrumentation deployed on the array consists of a variety of current meters, bottom
pressure recorders, CTD loggers and Inverted Echo Sounders, which, combined with time
series measurements of the Florida Channel Current and wind stress estimates, will be used
to determine the strength and structure of the MOC at 26.5°N.
(http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapidmoc)