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Hunting for Water

Gear and instruments for the CLIVAR Mode Water Dynamics Experiment (CLIMODE) is stacked on the deck of the research vessel Oceanus, while crew members prepare to cast a conductivity-temperature-depth rosette (foreground) to measure water properties. Scientists from the WHOI Physical Oceanography Department and eight other oceanographic institutions are in the midst of a three-year program to examine the formation and evolution of “eighteen-degree water” in the North Atlantic. Researchers are at sea again this week to hunt for these distinct parcels of water which have remarkably constant salinity, density, and temperature and to uncover how they might influence North Atlantic climate. (Photo by Sean Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)