Second year of Greenland drifter and float deployments are underway!

Arthur Coquereau (guest student in the Foukal lab) is currently sailing on the R/V Armstrong to deploy the second batch of surface drifters and profiling floats along the Southeast Greenland Shelf. This is the second year of fieldwork for the NSF-sponsored “Pathways and fate of fresh water near the southern tip of Greenland”. The cruise is experiencing a wide range of wind conditions including upwelling and downwelling-favorable winds - ideal for understanding the circulation around Cape Farewell! To the left is a picture of one of our drifters just after it was deployed, courtesy of Fiamma Straneo. The drogue (brown shape on left) unfurls once the water-soluble tape holding it together dissolves. The surface float (white sphere on right) has an Iridium connection that relays the temperature, salinity and position of the drifter to us in real time. Updates on the trajectories of the drifters and profiling floats will be posted soon at meltwater.whoi.edu.