About

The Labrador Sea is one of only a handful locations globally where deep convection (mixing of surface waters down to >1000m depth) occurs. This annual overturning provides a pathway for oxygen and anthropogenic carbon to enter the ocean’s interior from the atmosphere. Ventilation, Interactions and Transports Across the Labrador Sea (VITALS) is a Canadian project addressing carbon and oxygen cycling, lateral water exchange, and restratification in the Labrador Sea. VITALS project members are split between six teams covering fixed and mobile sampling, modelling, historical analysis, and biological processes. This blog documents the contribution of gliders to the mobile sampling component of the VITALS project. This work is led by Memorial University of Newfoundland (Drs Brad deYoung, Ralf Bachmayer and Robin Matthews) in collaboration with the University of Rhode Island (Dr Jaime Palter - previously at McGill). Former team members include Tara Howatt (previously of McGill - now at UBC) and Dr Brian Claus (previously of Memorial - now at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).
In early July 2015 glider team members from Memorial and McGill deployed three gliders (2 x 1000m, 1 x 200m) in the Labrador Current from the CCGS Hudson. The two 1000m gliders travelled down the Labrador shelf, conducting across-shelf sections along the way. The purpose was to quantify the exchange of freshwater and oxygen between the shelf and deeper open ocean waters further offshore, as well to examine the along-shelf evolution of the current.
In mid-September 2015 Memorial deployed a 1000m glider on the Labrador shelf near Gannet Islands, Labrador. This glider is currently making its way out to the central Labrador Sea where it fly around two oceanographic moorings - Canada's Seacyler and Germany's K1. The glider measures temperature, salinity, CO2 and oxygen, and will measure the spatial structure of these parameters around the moorings.

To learn more about VITALS and the work of the mobile sampling team, visit the VITALS website.

This blog is maintained by Robin Matthews.