RV Ronald H. Brown Cruise RB1201, 15 Feb - 05 Mar 2012. RAPID moorings cruise report

This report describes the UK mooring operations conducted during RV Ronald H. Brown cruise RB1201 between 15 February and 5 March 2012. These mooring operations were completed as part of the United Kingdom Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded RAPID-WATCH Programme to monitor the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) at 26.5°N. This cruise was a joint cruise between staff from the NERC and staff from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meterological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami. The primary purpose on this cruise for the UK team was to service the RAPID Western Boundary moorings while the US team worked on the NOAA Western Boundary Time Series project. Cruise RB1201 was from Charleston, South Carolina, USA to Charleston, South Carolina, USA and covered the Western Boundary moorings deployed on cruise KN200-4 in 2011 and landers deployed on cruise OC459 in 2010. This cruise was the ninth refurbishment (following initial deployment in 2004) of the Western Boundary section of an array of moorings deployed across the Atlantic in order to continuously observe the MOC. This array will be further refined and refurbished during subsequent years. The instruments deployed on the array consist of a variety of current meters, bottom pressure recorders, and CTD loggers, which, combined with time series measurements of the Florida Straits 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/rapid)