NAACOS

This cruise was funded by the Danish Centre for Marine Research and was part of research project “North Atlantic-Arctic Ocean coupling in a changing climate (NAACOS)”, funded by the Danish Strategic Research Council.

The cruise took place from 3 to 11 September 2012 and was conducted with the DTU research vessel Dana. 

The cruise was focused on studying the waters of the East Greenland Current that flow south along the East Greenland shelf and shelf break.

A multidisciplinary team of scientist was assembled to address the following objectives:

1. evaluate the structure and water mass distribution (origins) of the East Greenland Current using a combination of physical and water chemistry measurements.
2. characterize the fate and chemical properties of refractory organic carbon exported from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic via the East Greenland Current.
3. quantify primary productivity and net CO2 exchange in these waters.
4. use the large gradients in water mass characteristics and origins in the region to study how phytoplankton and zooplankton diversity and function differ and how these diversity differences influence carbon turnover.
5. describe the biodiversity of picoeukarytoes using newly developed molecular methods.
6. study the vertical and lateral zooplankton species distribution and links to water mass characteristics and origins.
7. estimate the carbon storage and transfer in zooplankton lipids.
8. investigate the plasticity of vital rates of selected copepod species across climatic (temperature) gradients.
9. contribute to the plankton monitoring data currently collected by Greenland Climate Research Centre.

The route sailed and the location of the stations visited.