Data Trawler - Survey Details

SS2013_V03    - is a Marine National Facility voyage

Period: 2013-04-27 22:00 to 2013-05-09 22:00 UTC

Duration: 12.00 days

From: Hobart To: Hobart

Region: Southern Ocean-Indian sector. Subantarctic Zone southwest of Tasmania

Ship: Southern Surveyor [details]

Description: MNF Southern Surveyor research voyage SS2013_v03.
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Facility 3. Southern Ocean Time Series (SOTS) moorings for climate and carbon cycle studies southwest of Tasmania (47ºS, 140ºE).
Scientific Objectives
The overall scientific objective is to obtain frequent measurements of surface and deep ocean properties that control the transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to the upper ocean, and then onwards to the ocean interior in the form of sinking particles. This "biological pump" drives carbon sequestration from the atmosphere, and writes the sedimentary record. The controls on its intensity are complex and involve processes that vary on daily, weekly, seasonal, and inter-annual timescales. Obtaining observations with the necessary frequency is not possible from ships. For this reason the IMOS Southern Ocean Time Series Facility seeks to obtain this information using automated sensor measurements and sample collections.
This voyage will carry out the annual servicing of SOTS moorings, along with a limited set of ancillary underway and on-station water column observations. The moorings to be deployed are:
SOFS-4 mooring to make meteorological and upper ocean measurements of physical and chemical properties important to air-sea exchange of heat, water, momentum, and dissolved gases (oxygen and CO2).
Pulse-10 mooring to make upper ocean measurements of properties that control carbon uptake and export to the ocean interior, including temperature, salinity, mixed layer depth, light, oxygen, total dissolved gases, phytoplankton fluorescence, particle backscatter, and dissolved nitrate, and collect 24 paired water samples later study of nutrients and phytoplankton identification.
SAZ-16 mooring to collect sediment trap samples in the deep sea (below 1000m) to quantify the transfer of particulate carbon and other materials to the ocean interior.

The moorings to be recovered are:
Pulse-9 mooring
SOFS-3 mooring (bottom half only - top recovered in 2012 after it broke loose)
(SAZ-15 mooring will not be recovered, and will remain in the ocean until recovery in 2014)

Ancillary measurements to be carried out include swath mapping, underway and CTD sensor and sample collections, zooplankton net sampling, towing of a continuous plankton recorder, launch of Argo floats, and a piggy-back project to calibrate ship acoustic sensors.

Leader: T. Trull (CMAR-UTAS-ACE)

Project: SOTS: Southern Ocean Time Series automated moorings for climate and carbon cycle studies southwest of Tasmania [details]