Kati points out some of the first pieces of floating sea ice sighted on our cruise. Photo by Brett Longworth My name is Kati Gosnell and I’m a graduate student in the Florida State University Oceanography Department, studying chemical oceanography. Currently trucking through my second year in the department, I’m working under the guidance of Dr. William Landing. My focus is in trace metals, so I get to clean a lot of bottles. There is a lot of trace metal action going on in my little world aboard the Research Vessel Roger Revelle. For this research cruise I am helping to sample for iron...

FSU IPY Cruise: Meet FSU Oceanography Post-Doctoral Associate Angela “Angie” Milne On deck of R/V Roger Revelle, against the backdrop of a tabular iceberg, Angie Milne, who suffers in Florida’s heat, enjoys Nature’s finest air conditioning. Photo by Charlene Grall “Hi, I’m Angie Milne, visiting FSU as a post-doctoral associate with Professor Bill Landing.” Angie’s an ocean-connected gal. Growing up in seaside Blackpool, England, Angie says, “I ‘packed in’ a job in the service field of insurance and pensions for the allure of exotic travel. This kindled my environmental interest...

FSU IPY Cruise: Meet Professor of Oceanography Bill Landing CLIVARI6S, Southern Ocean, approaching Antarctica: FSU’s Bill Landing works on deck in the driving sleet of austral summer. Photo by Brett Longworth Hi, again, from your outreach coordinator and the whole FSU Oceanography team. Though we’ve been “off the radar” for some time now, having traded our sea legs for terra firma, our IPY work is far from over. We’ve introduced part of our team and shared some experiences from our ship time collecting samples on the outbound leg of our CLIVARI6S transect, Longitude 30° E, from S. Africa to Anta...

Hello. I’m Thorsten Dittmar (pronounced TOR-sten), Assistant Professor of Oceanography at FSU since 2003 and co-chief scientist on this cruise. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Bremen, Germany. I’m a chemical oceanographer. My research focuses on the dynamics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the ocean. I use molecular methods to resolve environmental questions regarding DOM. Mugshot: Co-chief Scientist Thorsten Dittmar, photo by grad student JiYoungPaeng Why DOM? DOM is important in many aspects. DOM contains several chemical elements essential for the g...

FSU IPY Cruise: Return & St. Paddy’s Day Greeting A Celebration We’ve finished the outbound leg of our cruise; we’ve turned around and we’ll be doing additional sampling, especially in areas that piqued our curiosity on the leg out. We have some real-world experience under our belts, now. The first leg of our cruise was a gas; it’s taught us we can do, and have now already done, things we didn’t dream we could do. Challenges Some of us have had to cope with and adapt to seasickness. We’ve gotten used to a 12-hour shift, called a “watch.” We’ve had to deal with a pitching deck, at times encrusted with ice. We’ve had to sample when our hands had gone numb with cold. ...

FSU IPY Cruise: Meet FSU graduate student JiYoung Paeng Hello, my name is Jiyoung Paeng, a graduate student in Chemical Oceanography at FSU. I’m from South Korea, and this is my second year at FSU and in the U.S. JiYoung Paeng at work in her shipboard lab space. My work aboard this cruise I focus on identifying the source and fate of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to study the global carbon cycle in the oceanic and terrestrial setting. In the I6S cruise, under the guidance of Dr. Thorsten Dittmar, who is my advisor, I am trying to measure black carbon (lik...

FSU IPY Cruise: Meet graduate student Jun Dong My name is Jun Dong. I am a Ph.D. candidate in physical oceanography at Florida State University, working under Professor Kevin Speer on Polar Front dynamics in the Southern Ocean. I am very glad that I can join this CLIVARI6S cruise. I work on a team with Prof. Speer and Katy Hill, who is a physical oceanography Ph.D. student from Australia. Our shift is from noon to midnight. Photo caption: Jun is learning a variety of sampling procedures on this cruise. With Professor Bill Landing looking on, Jun draws a water sample for trac...

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 ...

My name is Austin Todd, and I am a first-year M.S. student in physical oceanography at FSU. This is actually my fifth year at FSU, where I completed a B.S. in meteorology and mathematics, and I am currently working under Dr. Eric Chassignet in ocean modeling in the Gulf of Mexico. On this I6S cruise, I am part of the CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) operations group. We basically run most of the operations of the CTD, including preparation, deployment, monitoring, and recovery of the CTD sampling apparatus. Our group is responsible for obtaining water samples from all depths of the ocean selected for sampling...

We’ve dealt with the Agulhas Current in blog posts #1, #3, and #5, but by now we’ve been out of the Agulhas for quite a while. We’ve been cruising due south along Longitude 30 East in the Southern Ocean and have been moving over and through a variety of water masses. With its powerful eastward-flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current and, further south...