Glider Cruise Report No. 1. Bellamite and Dynamite, 15 Sep-24 Nov 2008 and 21 May-21 Jul 2009: RAPID glider deployment report

Abstract

This report describes the trial glider operations conducted as part of the RAPID-MOC project
conducted between 15 September – 24 November 2008 and 21 May – 21 July 2009 between
the Canary Islands and the coast of Morocco.
The RAPID-MOC mooring array at 26.5°N is designed to quantify the strength and variability
of the transport of mass and heat associated with the Atlantic meridional overturning
circulation (MOC). Currently the majority of the measurements are made from moored
instruments.
The objective of this study was to assess the contribution that autonomous gliders could make
to the monitoring array. In particular the focus was on the use of gliders on the shallow eastern
boundary of the North Atlantic. This is the part of the RAPID array that has suffered the
greatest loss of instruments, in large part due to suspected fishing activity on the continental
slope. Furthermore, initial results (Chidichimo 2009) from the first three years of the RAPID
array have shown that the largest contribution to the seasonal variation in the MOC is the
variability of density on the eastern boundary in the upper 1000m.
It is expected that gliders will be less susceptible to loss by fishing than the moored
instruments. Another advantage of gliders is that data are retrieved in real-time via Iridium
satellite communications, further reducing the risk of data loss.
http://www.noc.soton.soton.ac.uk/rapidmoc
and/or
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/omf/projects/glider

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