RRS James Cook Cruise 41, 05-21 Dec 2009. UK DIMES1 Cruise Report: Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean

The DIMES (Diapycnal and Isopycnal Mixing Experiment in the Southern Ocean) research project seeks to test and, if necessary, redefine the present paradigm of Southern Ocean mixing by obtaining systematic measurements of mixing, upwelling and their underlying driving processes in two contrasting regimes of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) - the Southeast Pacific and the Southwest Atlantic. The JC041 cruise is the second cruise of the DIMES experiment and the first conducted in a British vessel. Its primary goals are: (1) to deploy a cluster of six U.K. moorings in Drake Passage to investigate how the energetic mesoscale eddies of the ACC are dissipated, and how they interact with the regional internal wave field; and (2) to deploy four Florida State University (FSU) sound sources in the same area to track a large set of isopycnal RAFOS floats deployed elsewhere by our American collaborators.