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RV Investigator IN2020_08 (GIpr10, SOLACE)
Cruise plan
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | RV Investigator (096U) |
| Cruise identifier | IN2020_08 (GIpr10, SOLACE) |
| Cruise period | 2020-12-03 — 2021-01-16 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Hobart, Australia |
| Port of return | Hobart, Australia |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | SOLACE - Southern Ocean Large Areal Carbon Export: quantifying carbon sequestration in subpolar and polar waters
The SOLACE (Southern Ocean Large Areal Carbon Export) study will be part of a global international effort to make a step-wise improvement in our ability to assess the strength and efficiency of carbon storage by the oceans’ biological pump. This pronounced ability for such enhancement of our capabilities stems from a combination of unprecedented technological advances in satellite and profiling float sensors; improved data analysis tools (e.g. neural nets) and modelling platforms (direct uptake of satellite data into biogeochemical models); and innovative instruments for sampling the subsurface ocean (advanced acoustic/camera systems, particle interceptors/incubators). Critically, the aims of this voyage are built around observations, process studies and modelling. SOLACE will compare and contrast downward particle export flux at low and high export sites, thus placing bounds on Southern Ocean export and the many processes that drive it. We will undertake a suite of transdisciplinary measurements, involving overseas collaborators, to target the many characteristics of the biological pump in both surface and subsurface waters. These datasets will be used for both validation of satellite, bio-float and acoustic remote-sensing and model parameterisation. The former will provide the means to extrapolate the biological pump regionally, and the latter will probe how the regional biological pump is likely to change in a future Southern Ocean, in response to projected increases in productivity. |
| Chief scientist | Philip Boyd (University of Tasmania, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies) |
| Project | GEOTRACES -Trace elements and their isotopes in the water column |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | Indian Ocean South West Pacific Ocean (limit 140W) |
| Specific | ~140E; 47S to 55S |
