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About
PS146; Project: HAFOS Olaf Boebel (GPF23-1_015)
The German research icebreaker RV Polarstern is scheduled to embark on a Weddell Sea expedition (PS146), leaving Walvis Bay, Namibia on 24 December 2024 and returning to Port Stanley, Falklands on 12 March 2025. The expedition will cover most regions west of the Prime Meridian including the southern Weddell Sea shelf, and plans to service oceanographic moorings, carry out CTD surveys with biogeochemical water column sampling, deploy autonomous measuring devices such as floats and drifters, and carry out sea ice-based snow and ice research and marine mammal tagging.
Goals:
Decadelong AWI-led investigations under the umbrella of HAFOS (Hybrid Antarctic Float and Ocean Observatory) combined shipboard surveys with oceanographic moorings and autonomous floats, and contributed significantly to the understanding of the circulation and the quantification of decadal variability and warming trends.The Weddell Sea features a rich and diverse ecosystem, complex sea-ice dynamics and intense ocean circulation. The physical and biogeochemical processes that prevail in the central Weddell Sea and the water mass formation on the heavily ice-covered southern and western shelves provide an important contribution to the global ocean circulation, sea level, and carbon sequestration.
The expedition aims at performing mooring and float operations, as well as shipboard physical and biogeochemical sampling:
i) along the Prime Meridian Transect between 50°S and the Antarctic continent;
ii) across the interior Weddell Gyre;
iii) in the gyre’s outflow region (Joinville Island transect) at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula;
iv) inflow region off Kapp Norvegia.
Principal Investigators:
Participants: 50
Free berths: -
Period:
December 2024 - March 2025
Days at sea:
77
Working Area: The working area is the Weddell Gyre and adjacent southern Antarctic Circumpolar Current.The bounding coordinates are: 20°E - 70°W, 50°S - 78°S.
Disciplines: Physical oceanography; marine chemistry; biological oceanography; climate research. Specific work directions: hydrography, marine biogeochemistry, marine acoustic ecology, cetology
International/national collaboration: GLODAP; GOOS; ICOS; SOCAT
Information
The bounding coordinates are: 20�E - 70�W, 50�S - 78�S.
Contacts
Christine Wesche
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research
Polardex assistant
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