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Current Monitor

MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Isabela Le Bras stands in front of a flotation sphere on R/V Knorr in the North Atlantic. The sphere keeps a mooring, a string of instruments anchored to the ocean floor, upright in the water column. This particular mooring was deployed as part of the Line W project to monitor the velocity, temperature and salinity of the Deep Western Boundary current, which brings cold water south toward the equator. Data from this and other moorings is fundamental to scientists’ understanding of how ocean circulation affects Earth’s climate system.(Photo courtesy of JInbo Wang)