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Welcome aboard for a voyage of scientific exploration

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There is an obscure body of water separating Iceland from Greenland called the Denmark Strait.  It’s not very wide, only 600 miles, but it’s one of the most important stretches of water in the entire ocean circulation.  Here’s why:  Every second of every day millions of cubic meters of warm water flow north along the British Isles and up the coast of Norway aboard an arm of the Gulf Stream System, treating Western Europe to a far more moderate climate than their latitude deserves.  However, if all that warm water flows north, an equal quantity of cold water must flow south to maintain the circulation.  The narrow Denmark Strait is the main portal for southbound water.  Therefore, it’s vital we understand the upstream system that delivers water to the strait. 
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Journals by Dallas (English)

August 22, 2011

Dispatch 1: Underway, Again

In a couple of hours, we’ll be underway again heading back to those same waters where we were so harshly treated three years ago.More »

August 23, 2011

Dispatch 2: The Identity of Water

To apprehend the true wonder of the ocean-current system, we need to imagine the ocean alive with motion, currents flowing on the surface and through the deep darks, never ceasing, transporting heat and water from the tropics to the Arctic and returning cold water at depth. More »

August 24, 2011

3: How to Measure an Ocean, Part One

The basic structure of a mooring consists of the anchor, a powerfully buoyant ball near the surface, and a wire in between onto which instruments measuring, in this case, temperature, salinity, and velocity are attached. More »

August 27, 2011

4: Imagining Oceans

To appreciate the elegant beauty of nature’s great ocean/atmosphere systems, we need to cast our minds out over vast distances and into opaque depths. More »

August 28, 2011

5: Play Day (For Some)

The deck crew, with the sure-handed seamanship typical to this vessel, craned the small boat (a rigid-hull inflatable, or “RHIB”) off the 0-2 deck, lowered it to main deck and secured it to the starboard rail for ease of boarding.More »


Last updated: December 27, 2011



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