Bremerhaven – Cape Town (28 October – 1 December 2011)

On October 28^th 2011 RV Polarstern will start its Atlantic transfer from Bremerhaven to Cape Town as first leg of the 28^th of Antarctic cruise ANT-XXVIII/1.

The cruise will be utilized for continuous investigations of atmospheric and marine properties as well as for energy and material fluxes between ocean and atmosphere, for sea trials and tests of improved systems for underwater navigation and bathymetry, rate measurements of cosmic rays, and for purposes of the investigation of Atlantic breeding grounds of whales on the southern hemisphere.

Monitoring of the energy and material exchange between ocean and atmosphere will be done by using an observation system developed for operational use onboard cargo and research vessels. The project is based on a network of expertise from IFM-GEOMAR (CO₂-/O₂-fluxes, photosynthetic status, energy budget, remote sensing), IfT (lidar measurements), the GKSS research centre (ferry box), AWI Bremerhaven (CO₂-system, marine infrastructure of R/V Polarstern), and MPI Hamburg.

Continuous rate measurements of cosmic particles (DESY) allow to investigate the influence of cloud formation on the cosmic particle flux. Visual observations of seabirds and marine mammals will be carried out by a Belgium group (Laboratory for Polar Ecology) to determine the population distributions of those animals from higher to lower latitude.

Sound Velocity Profiles (SVP) are important parameters for multibeam operations. Using the existing globally available CTD-data to derive global SVP will provide very useful tools to operate hydro-acoustic instruments. The derived SVP will be compared during this cruise with the measured one to validate this method. A number of tests and sea trials will be performed also of the “Posidonia” system (AWI and Fielax) for underwater navigation and the multibeam  “Hydrosweep DS III“ system (AWI).

Argo floats will be deployed during this cruise in co-operation between AWI and IFREMER to measure global oceanographic and atmospheric parameters. The central data acquisition system “D-Ship” will be upgraded to operate with the LINUX-software. Sea trials and tests will be carried out between Bremerhaven and Las Palmas.

In the Angola basin an oceanographic mooring hosting an acoustic recorder (AWI) will be recovered and new one will be deployed to improve our knowledge of Atlantic breeding grounds of several species of baleen whales.