MARIA S. MERIAN MSM21/1a

The scientific program of leg 1a of the crusie MSM21 has a focus on the western part of the subpolar North Atlantic Ocean, a key region for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

We will have two regional key areas to work in:
1) In the Labrador Sea investigations on the deep western boundary current will be carried out with moored and ship based profiling instrumentation. A key region is here the Labrador shelf at 53°N/55°W where the GEOMAR maintains a long term mooring array since about 2 decades. The array allows us to monitor the transport and porperties of water within the deep western boundary current. The array will be serviced during MSM21/1a. Moreover we will survey a hyrographic section crossing the Labrador sea which will allow us, in comparison with earlier data, so investigate changes in the Labrador Sea stratification.

2) The second area of interest is the Irminger Sea, the region east of southern Greenland. Here we will maintain a mooring in the centre of the Irminger Sea which observes the convection activity. Moreover, a mooring array further north, approximately half way along the Greenland coast, will be serviced and more hydrographic sections will be acquired.

Our work is embedded in the EU project THOR and the BMBF project "Nordatlantik".