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Alace ALACE Float Performance

Cruise summary report

Cruise Info. 
Ship nameAlace
Cruise identifierALACE Float Performance
StatusCompleted
PurposeResearch
ObjectivesThis report describes trajectories and profiles obtained to date from seven profiling ALACE floats depolyed in the Irminger Basin in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre in October 1996. We were interested in circulation at or near the 'level of no motion' in the Irminger Basin, meaning the middle of the Labrador Sea Water layer at about 1500 dbar. We wished to try to locate the floats in the least oceanographically active part of the Irminger Basin, which meant avoiding the basin boundaries: the western boundary off Greenland, the eastern boundary of the Reykjanes Ridge and the northern boundary at Denmark Strait. In this meteorologically rather data-poor area we hoped that the annual upper ocean heat flux cycle might be estimated via the T and S profiles of the floats.
Chief scientistSheldon Bacon (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton)
ProjectEvaluation of profiling ALACE float performance
Cruise reportAlace ALACE Float Performance cruise report alace_float_performance_96_data_report.pdf (1.19 MB) 
Ocean/sea areas 
GeneralNorth East Atlantic Ocean (limit 40W)
SpecificIrminger Basin in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre
Measurements 
Physical oceanography 
Subsurface temperature and salinity measurementsDescription: It was found that float salinities were accurate, as compared to CTD results. No. of measurements not noted.