By Eric Lindstrom Yi Chao is one of the “spiritual leaders” of our “dry” team in SPURS (those people who help from land). He is an ocean modeler in California who has been involved with Aquarius and SPURS for many years. He long ago decided to be on the dry team because of the seasickness […]
By Eric Lindstrom The SPURS work has renewed interest in the broader community in studying the ocean to better understand the global water cycle, heating and cooling of the oceans, and oceanic mixing. Julian Schanze of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/MIT is about to complete his Ph.D. in physical oceanography under the supervision of Ray Schmitt. […]
Take a moment to gaze at the beautiful harvest moon this Saturday, September 29th.(Image credit: NASA)The harvest moon gets its name from agriculture. In the days before electric lights, farmers depended on bright moonlight to extend the workday beyond sunset. It was the only way they could gather their ripening crops in time for market. …
In mid-September 2012, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced that Arctic sea ice had reached a new record minimum — 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). The previous record low came in September 2007 at 4.17 million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles). The 1979–2000 average minimum ice extent was […]
By Eric Lindstrom The thermosalinograph (TSG) on Knorr is a shipboard instrument for measuring temperature and salinity of the near surface water . It is situated in a lab and receives a flow of water taken in near the bow and piped out near the stern. It is quite an adventure going down to see […]
By Eric Lindstrom The Research Vessel Knorr is a fantastically capable oceanographic research vessel. She has traveled over 2 million miles and explored all the major oceans in her around 40 years of service. As a visiting oceanography research crew, we have our space on the ship, for which we have free run. We are […]
By Eric Lindstrom There are not many places in the open ocean that get their own special name as a “sea.” Most seas are what we call marginal seas – offshoots of the major ocean basins. The Sargasso Sea, as a vast track of the western subtropical North Atlantic Ocean is known, has a special […]
By Eric Lindstrom After several weeks of your following my postings from the field, I thought it would be good to tell you a little about myself. Maybe that will help explain the weird wanderings of the blog or the subject matters I choose to write about. Let’s start at the beginning: I grew up […]
By Eric Lindstrom From the shipboard perspective, all we really see of the sea is the surface. Of course we can see into the water a short way, right close to the ship, but not very far. The horizon is 360 degrees and the great dome of sky seems endless. Being that we are about […]
