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We’ve continued to make good progress in the last 24 hours. The 4th of 5 moorings was recovered early this morning in near-calm conditions. We will aim for the final mooring recovery early tomorrow morning. We also completed CTD stations at three sites and just deployed an Argo float. The mooring and CTD work is much easier in the cooperative weather conditions we’ve experienced for the last few days. The good weather is forecast to continue for another few days, which should allow us to finish off the mooring work and make a good start to the CTD transect. Overnight we also started some tests of a simple temperature profiler called an XBT (for “eXpendable BathyThermograph’). These instruments have been deployed from merchant vessels for decades and much of what we know about ocean temperature changes since the 1970s is based on these measurements. On this voyage, we are deploying XBTs at the same time as we deploy the much more accurate CTD package. The comparison will help us identify and correct for biases in temperature or depth of the XBT readings. The corrections help us get a much clearer view of how the ocean is changing.
Regards, Steve and Barbara
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.