The mid-latitude storms would sometimes come like beads on a string, one right after another, stalling the research team’s efforts to deploy the critical ocean-monitoring instruments that sat secured on the deck of the 273-foot Roger Revelle.
But despite the barrage of cyclonic storms, science prevailed. Using sophisticated equipment that ranged from underwater gliders and surface drifters to moorings and a state-of-the-art instrument called a Wire Flyer, University of Miami oceanographer Lisa Beal and a group of more than two dozen researchers amassed a trove of new ocean data in a region of the Southeastern Atlantic Ocean called the Cape Cauldron, bringing them a step closer to understanding the ocean’s role in climate change.
“The Cape Cauldron is one of the ocean’s most energetic regions, full of spinning eddies and meandering filaments that vigorously stir and mix warm salty Indian Ocean waters into the cold Atlantic,” explained Beal, a professor of ocean sciences at the University’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, who led a recent 26-day research cruise to that basin.
Read more at: University of Miami
Rosenstiel School senior research associate Cedric Guigand, left, and assistant scientist Guillaume Novelli inventory some of the 200 surface drifters that were deployed during the 26-day cruise in the Cape Cauldron. (Photo Credit: Cedric Guigand)