February 1, 2008:

Hello! We are graduate students from the Department of Oceanography at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, USA. We are participants in the CLIVARI6S Repeat Hydrography Research Project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation as one of the many activities of the International Polar Year (IPY).

Professors Kevin Speer, William Landing, and Thorsten Dittmar, Post Doctoral Researcher Angie Milne, and Associate in Oceanography Peter Lazarevich will direct us, and we graduate students, Kati Gosnell, Katy Hill, Juliana D’Andrilli, Jun Dong, Ji-Young Paeng, and Austin Todd, are looking forward to a lot of invaluable hands-on experience. In Durban, South Africa, our port of departure, a fifth student, Loic Juillon, will join us, arriving from England. On campus, Nicholas Wienders, Post Doctoral Researcher and Computer Research Specialist, will provide sea ice/data processing. We’ll introduce the participants in upcoming blogs. Susan Gladwin on campus will provide administrative support. We’ll be communicating daily with Linda Jamison, back on the FSU campus, who will provide outreach coordination for the duration of the cruise activities. Shawn Steadham will provide computer support.

On February 4, 2008, we’ll depart Durban, South Africa, aboard Scripps Institute Research Vessel Roger Revelle for approximately 7 weeks cruising the Indian and Southern Oceans along a transect coinciding with Longitude 30 East. We will sample water for a variety of properties at 44 stations, on both the outgoing leg and the return, for a total of 88 samples.

Out of Durban, we will be entering the southward-flowing Agulhas Current, a western boundary current following the east coast of Africa. Where Longitude 30 East intersects the Agulhas, we will begin our transect, traveling due south along the longitude line into the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. Though we will approach the Antarctic continent, it’s unlikely we will see it. Our ship is not equipped to venture into ice.

During the next few days, stand by for more blog posts. Next couple of days we’ll be loading and stowing our gear on the research vessel, checking out our quarters and meeting other IPY participant groups in whose research efforts we will also participate on a limited basis. Catch ya later . . .