2018 NF-POGO Shipboard Training Fellowship onboard MSM72 cruise

General Information

2 Mar 2018 to 3 Apr 2018

The cruise is a section of the GO-SHIP repeat hydrography program and will reoccupy the line MED-01 that was last occupied in its entirety in 2011 on the RV Meteor.

Priority areas

The last few decades have seen dramatic changes in the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the Mediterranean Sea. The complex bathymetry, the highly variable spatial and temporal scales of atmospheric forcing and internal processes contribute to generate complex and unsteady circulation patterns and significant variability in biogeochemical systems. Part of this variability can be influenced by anthropogenic contributions. Consequently, there is a need to document its details as well as to understand ongoing trends in order to better relate the observed processes and to possibly predict the consequences of these changes. The main goal of the cruise is to contribute to the understanding of long-term changes and trends in physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as the anthropogenic carbon uptake and to still evaluate the hydrographical situation after the major climatological shifts in the eastern and western part of the basin, known as the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Transients.

The following science questions will be addressed:

1.What are the long-term changes and/or trends in physics and biogeochemistry in the Mediterranean Sea, including all the sub-basins?

2. How is the hydrographic situation in the Mediterranean developing further on after the EMT and WMT? Is there still a trend of the system to return to the pre-EMT situation and is there a similar trend in the WMed?

3.How are eddies distributed in the EMed and WMed during the cruise? Do they differ in the sub basins? To what extend is heat and salt transferred into the vertical by eddies in the WMed and EMed during the cruise?

4.What is the rate of uptake of the anthropogenic carbon in the Mediterranean and is this changing over time?

5.What is the magnitude of variability and trends in the inventory of biogechemical variables (including oxygen and nutrients)?

6.What is the base-line values of rarely measured Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) such as DOC and N2O

What is offered

The selected applicant will participate on the cruise on the German RV Maria S. Merian to the Mediterranean Sea in March 2018 (cruise MSM72). The cruise is a section of the GO-SHIP repeat hydrography program and will reoccupy the line MED-01 that was last occupied in its entirety in 2011 on the RV Meteor. The fellow will work in the inorganic carbon lab of Dr. Marta Álvarez (IEO, Spain) and be part of a team of 4 in this lab.

Prior to the cruise, the fellow will spend 4 weeks in Dr. Álvarez' lab in Spain to gain experience in those particular measurements (DIC, Alkalinity, pH and CO32-) with the instruments that will be used on the cruise. After the cruise, the successful applicant will visit Kiel for 4 weeks to post-process all the data from the cruise.

Application

How to apply

Applications are now closed for this fellowship.

Terms