Chief Scientist Kevin Speer, geared up for brisk weather on an upper deck of the R/V Roger Revelle, watches whales near the ship on the CLIVARIS6 cruise in the Southern ocean. (Photo Credit: Brett Longworth, a participant from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Greetings. I’m Kevin Speer, Chief Scientist on the current CLIVAR cruise, Professor of Oceanography at the Florida State University. I’m a physical oceanographer and earned my Ph.D. at MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - Joint Program, 1988.
I joined the FSU Department of Oceanography faculty in 1999 as an associate professor and am also an associate of FSU’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute. Previously I worked with the Laboratoire de Physique des Oceans, IFREMER, Brest, France, and before that with the Institut für Meereskunde, Marine Physics Department, Kiel, Germany.
I’m interested in general circulation of the oceans, especially the thermohaline circulation, and flow forced by hydrothermal or geothermal sources. My current research deals with water movement between the depths and the surface of the Southern Ocean and its relation to air-sea heat exchanges and eddy transport (more later) mechanisms.
Ongoing projects include the direct observation of circulation in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean with subsurface floats. Studies of transport mechanisms for mass, heat, and salt are the fundamental motivation for these experiments and studies.
The R/V Roger Revelle’s research operations control room with Chief Scientist Kevin Speer (foreground) and some of the FSU grad students as they monitor water masses in the ocean below.
Our research transect along Longitude 30 °East has taken us from sub-tropical waters to Antarctic waters, a huge transition of ocean conditions, some challenging. Throughout, we’ve been very well taken care of by our captain and crew. Every day there’s a new adventure and beautiful and fascinating sights to see.
Conditions
We’ve been visited by pods of whales several times, and one morning with our sunrise, we got the rare bonus of a lengthy green flash. The green flash is an optical atmospheric phenomenon seen once in a while with an ocean sunrise or sunset. When we first sighted icebergs, they created quite a stir, but now they’ve become daily fare, in the background but still well appreciated as we glance around while we go about our work.
Air temperatures are now just below 0° C. Some ice has started building up on deck. Extra safety precautions are now in place reminding people to be careful.
Notable pools of fresher cooler surface water are present from time to time according to the underway system and the CTD data (conductivity/temperature/depth). That indicates melting ice.
We heard from colleagues on the German ice-breaker Polarstern
(German for pole star = English: North Star or Polaris) who also reported some of the freshest surface water observed in 10 years. We are all wondering if global warming is at work or if the random low-frequency variability of weather causes such pools.
The Polarstern is at nearly the same latitude, but heading south along the Greenwich Meridian, then over to the German Antarctic Base. They found out where we are from meteorological charts received at sea that identify sources of data.
We will bear east off 30° E toward a sea floor feature called the Gunnerus Bank to finish the section, then head out along another sea floor feature, the Gunnerus Ridge. The point of doing this is to attempt to find the shallowest bathymetry (sea-bottom depth profile) outside the sea-ice edge and obtain data as close as possible to the shelf.
Sea-ice images from National Ice Center and FSU have been helpful in preparing an approach plan. If time permits and ice conditions become prohibitive near 30° E, we will occupy a section farther west.
Stand by. In case you like what we’ve been telling you, we’ll be serving up more for you soon. As you can probably tell, I love my work with the FSU Department of Oceanography and on NSF and NOAA research projects. Imagine going on your coffee break and getting whale-watching as a perk!