RV Seward Johnson Cruise SJ08-03 Leg 2, 22-30 Apr 2008: RAPID-MOC Spring 2008 Western Boundary moorings refurbishment cruises

This report describes the mooring operations conducted on the RV Seward Johnson cruise SJ08-03 Leg 2 between 22nd April and 30th April 2008. T hese mooring operations were completed as part of the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) RAPID and RAPID-WATCH programmes to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5°N. The primary purpose of this cruise was to service the Western Boundary section of the 26.5°N mooring array first deployed in 2004 during RRS Discovery cruises D277 and D278 (SOC cruise report number 53). Cruise SJ08-03 leg 2 sailed from Freeport, Grand Bahama to Ft. Pierce, Florida and serviced the moorings deployed on RB0701 (along with 2 landers deployed on RB0602). This cruise is the fourth annual refurbishment of the Western Boundary section of an array of moorings deployed across the Atlantic in order to set up a pre-operational prototype system to continuously observe the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). This array will be further refined and refurbished during subsequent years. T he instrumentation deployed on the array consists of a variety of current meters, bottom pressure recorders, CTD loggers and Inverted Echo Sounders, which, combined with time series measurements of the Florida Channel Current and wind stress estimates, will be used to determine the strength and structure of the MOC at 26.5°N. (http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/rapidmoc)