SOLACE team arrives back in Hobart after a successful 6 week voyage

After a 1000 nautical mile steam from polar waters, the SOLACE voyage finishes today, as we dock in Hobart.

We made landfall last night and will experience summer for the first time since early December – so time to find some sunscreen. The voyage has been a success as has been evident from several impressive science presentations that took place onboard during our 4 day steam northwards from our S. polar site. We achieved our goal of assessing the contribution of the various physical and biological pumps to carbon sequestration at three contrasting sites that represent diverse biogeochemical and ecological provinces. In addition, the mesopelagic characteristics of each site were also distinct providing a pronounced series of regional differences that we can use to tease apart the relative roles of each carbon pump.

Of course, although the voyage is over, SOLACE is ongoing with our BGC-ARGO profiling floats and a glider continuing the mission, along with satellite oceanography. We finish the SOLACE blog with this post, but will set up a SOLACE www site that can be linked into through JETZON. Thank you for following our posts.

Team SOLACE.