METEOR M119

Cruise M119 is a joint effort of the Kiel Collaborative Research Center SFB 754 (”Climate - Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropical Ocean“) and the BMBF joint project RACE. Within the framework of the SFB 754, ventilation processes of the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ), including lateral mixing, vertical mixing and oxygen advection (subprojects A3 and A4) as well as the role of zooplankton for oxygen consumption and biogeochemical cycles (SP B8) will be investigated. At the equator, the cruise will focus on the equatorial current system, its interannual variability and its role in the zonal transport of heat, freshwater, and oxygen (BMBF RACE, SFB 754).
Within the framework of RACE the aim of this cruise is to investigate the variability of the western boundary current system off South America. A particular focus will be on the transport variability of the North Brazil Undercurrent (NBUC) – as part of the meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and the subtropical cells (STCs) – on timescales from intraseasonal to decadal.
The main operations during M119 will be the recovery and redeployment of several deep sea moorings, station work and the data upload of two moored pressure inverted echo sounders (PIES). For the station work a combination of CTD/Lowered ADCP/Underwater Vision profiler (UVP), a microstructure probe, a zooplankton multinet and a towed camera will be deployed. In addition, underway measurements of upper ocean currents with the two shipboard ADCPs and hydrographic measurements with the thermosalinograph probe will be performed.