OOI Deploys Fourth and Final Global Array
(Click to enlarge) The Argentine Basin Surface Mooring buoy bobs with the waves after being deployed in over 3 miles of water (5.2km). (Photo Credit: OOI Coastal Global Scale Nodes program Argentine Basin deployment team)
On March 9th, the R/V Atlantis exited the Straights of Magellan en route from Punta Arenas, Chile to the Argentine Basin.
The ship carried with it infrastructure and instruments for deployment at the OOI’s Argentine Basin Array and an OOI Team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Over the course of the next few weeks, the team successfully deployed one Global Surface Mooring, one subsurface Global Profiler Mooring, two mesoscale Flanking Moorings, and three Open-Ocean Gliders.
The ship returned to port in Montevideo, Uruguay March 25th, completing the fourth, and final, Global Array installation. The Southern Ocean Array (55°S, 90°W) was deployed just prior to the Argentine Basin cruise in February (see story here), Station Papa Array was deployed Summer 2013 (see story here), and the Irminger Sea Array was deployed Fall 2014 (see story here).
OOI Global Arrays focus on the critical, yet under-sampled, high-latitude regions of the Pacific and Atlantic. Each site includes a network of moorings that support sensors for measurement of air-sea fluxes of heat, moisture and momentum; and physical, biological and chemical properties throughout the water column.
Deployments continue at the two coastal arrays – Endurance and Pioneer Array – over the next month. OOI construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of June 2015.