The work on board has been going well. We had enough time yesterday to do an independent cast for a student sampling for black carbon, which requires an enormous amount of water, as well as having enough time for the crew to do dive checks of the ship. The pH group has also gotten their equipment back online (fingers crossed it stays that way for them) after several days of uncertainty.
Yesterday a brief description was given of one of the working science groups on board. Continuing on that trend, our second set of sampling is Oxygen. The O2 group samples for several reasons on this cruise. The CTD that we deploy has O2 sensors on it (primary and secondary), these measure the O2 levels using a membrane that given time and circumstance can 'gum up' and go off calibration. To prevent inaccurate data from being given to the scientists using the data collected on this cruise, sampled O2 is used like a finger print to check the accuracy of the CTD O2 sensor. Another purpose for O2 sampling is that oxygen is another type of water mass tracer much like salinity and temperature. Unique ocean processes and features can be identified and tracked using water mass tracers. The other reason for this gathering of data is for biological research. Hypoxic (little to no usable oxygen) regions are of great interest to biologists studying the diversity in the world's oceans.
We will also be releasing GDP drifter number 5 and Argo float number 4 today.
Hope you enjoyed reading.
-Elizabeth
Our current location here at Station 38 is:
30 0.01 S and 3 21.51 W
Below are several photos of: a)Bringing the CTD back on board after a long cast, b) Another view of that amazing sunrise, c) The CTD at 10 metres under the surface from above.
Man you weren't kidding about the glassy water. Soo soo beautiful. And 'black carbon/ hypoxic region' sounds like an indy film title.
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