ANT-XXVI/4, Weekly Report No. 1
6 April - 12 April 2010
Punta Arenas, Chile: On the sunny Tuesday of April 6, a scientific party of 21 starts to prepare for the upcoming cruise ANT XXVI/4 (Fig. 1). Laboratory and equipment containers as well as several airfreight shipments have already been or are about to be delivered to the ship in good shape, and the group gets busy with unloading and setting up of the scientific equipment in the various laboratories. The OCEANET container for atmospheric measurements is removed from the compass platform and placed on the pier (Fig. 2) so that the mobile Raman Lidar System of the Leibniz Institute for Trophospheric Research in Leipzig can be re-installed (Fig. 3) after interim storage at the University of Punta Arenas. All preparations move along smoothly and are nearly finished at the time of departure.
On schedule, R/V Polarstern leaves port on April 7 at 16:00 steaming under pilot and with full cruising speed through the Strait of Magellan in northeastward direction. After nearly two days of transit the first station is reached late on April 9. This first station already goes well and by now we have settled into our daily station routine that will keep us busy for most of the 15.000 kilometres of seaway ahead of us (Fig. 4).
The OCEANET container for atmospheric observations is waiting on the pier in Punta Arenas to be lifted to its exposed position on the compass platform of RV Polarstern. (photo: A. Körtzinger)
R/V Polarstern Cruise ANT XXVI/4 is all about the OCEANET project (www.ifm-geomar.de/index.php?id=oceanet) which is funded through a competitive procedure of the Leibniz Association by the German Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation. The project consortium consists of the main project proponents – Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Kiel and Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig – as well as the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research and the GKSS Institute for Coastal Research in Geesthacht. Major goals of the project are the development, testing, op-eration and evaluation of autonomous measurements platforms for the estimation of the exchange of matter and energy between ocean and atmosphere. OCEANET avails itself of the two annual transit cruises of R/V Polarstern which provides an excellent platform for the project. For OCEANET, the current cruise is already the fifth in a row (ANT-XXIV/4, ANT-XXV/1+5, ANT-XXVI/1+4) and major progress in terms of methods and instruments employed has been achieved.
Polly XT, a mobile Raman Lidar of the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig, is being moved into the OCEANET container. (photo: A. Körtzinger)
Several components of the project’s observational portfolio are thus fully operational and largely autonomous. OCEANET also maintains a very beneficial cooperation with the Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group PHYTOOPTICS lead by Dr. Astrid Bracher (AWI and University of Bremen) which takes part in the current cruise. Further participating projects are carried out by IFM-GEOMAR, University of Kiel, Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, University of Utrecht/Netherlands und Scripps Institution of Oceanography/USA. The remaining five weekly reports will provide ample opportunity to do justice to these projects and present their work.
After three days of station work the procedures are starting to work smoothly. All laboratories are fully set up and the various measurement systems are up and running. It is worth mentioning that we enjoyed much active help from the ship’s crew with the many small teething problems that every cruise start seems to bring with it. The atmosphere on board is very good, the weather is well-meaning too, and we are looking forward to a pleasant and hopefully successful cruise.
Planned cruise track of RV Polarstern cruise ANT-XXVI/4
With best regards from the chief scientist and the entire scientific party,
Arne Körtzinger
RV Polarstern 40°30' S / 53°10' W