SCIENCE FACT: The RAPID/MOCHA project

www.rsmas.miami.edu/users/mocha/mocha_files/SJ08_video_0002.wmv

Check out the video!

The RAPID project is an amazing intercontinental project with US and Europe heavily involved.
The big goal is the continuous measurement of the meridional overturning circulation strength at 26.5°N. To do so, a whole array of measuring buoys were lowered down to the Atlantic ocean floor, each of the buoys longer than several times the Eiffel Tower!

Since then, a scientific crew drives out there, locating the buoys with high accuracy gps and collect the measurements.

The project made possible a whole new understanding of the meridional overturning circulation in the Atlantic.

Before, only point-in-time measurements existed about circulation strength. According to those, the AMOC or THC must have weakened. But now, scientists were able to notice the extremely large variability of the AMOC. This was totally unexpected outcome!

Still, many scientists see a reduction, even in the longterm data (see below). Whether that reduction is significant or just part of the multi-year variability is still unknown.

Still, the project has proven to be reliable in measuring the AMOC over time! Hence, it has been extended twice already since 2004. Let's see whether they extended again!.....

http://www.sams.ac.uk/stuart-cunningham/rapic-moc-mocha

http://www.rapid.ac.uk/rapidmoc/

http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/users/mocha/