One of the goals of the QUICCHE campaign is to characterize the air-sea heat fluxes in the Cape Cauldron, looking at what the most significant oceanic and atmospheric drivers there are in the area.
Good morning from the Cape Basin and the QUICCHE campaign! I’m Michaela, master student at the University of Gothenburg and I’m working on my master’s thesis as a part of the Polar Gliders group. My project is about characterizing the air-sea heat fluxes in the Cape Cauldron, looking at what the most significant oceanic and atmospheric drivers there are in the area and then compare it with reanalysis data. During the cruise, I am looking at meteorological (MET) and Thermosalinograph (TSG) data, learning a lot about the ships sensors and looking for patterns when crossing remarkable features.
It’s currently 05:51 local time and we are just about halfway through the night-watch that goes from 02-10 AM. So far, this shift has been calm. I spent time looking at the new MET- data from when I was asleep, then I took a break by walking the ship, admiring the milky way and next up is to watch the sunrise before it’s time for breakfast. The real action of the day will start after breakfast when another 4000-meter mooring will be deployed! I absolutely love the action of these big operations and to see all the people focus and work together to get the job they prepared for a long time done.
Not all night shifts are this calm, we have 24-hour operations on the ship, so we must always be ready. One of the photos in this post is from a couple of nights ago while recovering the wire flyer in a big swell. The clump weighs about 1000 kilos so we always must think about safety and stay focused in these kinds of operations, but I just love the action. I’ll also leave you with a picture of one of many beautiful sunrise operations, this one from yesterday while operating the vertical microstructure profiler (VMP) together.
Until next time!
The vertical microstructure profiler (VMP). Credits: Sam Fredriksson