Sustained monitoring of the EAC: mass, heat and freshwater transports

Voyage summary

Research voyage to the East Australian Current (EAC) off Brisbane to recover a long-term deep-water mooring array for monitoring of ocean and climate.

The long-term ocean monitoring by the EAC deep-water mooring array, a component of the Integrated Marine Observing System  (IMOS), is central to our understanding of the relationship between global ocean and climate variability. The EAC is the complex and highly energetic western boundary current of the South Pacific Ocean.  It is the dominant mechanism for the redistribution of heat and freshwater between the ocean and atmosphere in the Australian region.  

The primary voyage objective is to recover six deep-water moorings in waters off Brisbane from the continental shelf (500 m depth) to abyssal waters (5000 m depth).

There are 3other projects included on this voyage:

• Sub-bottom profiling of SE Queensland Bulge (Dr Helen Bostock, UQ): Collection of opportunistic sub-bottom profiles of the SE Queensland ‘bulge’ area to identify possible future coring sites.
• Argo float deployments (Dr Peter Oke, CSIRO): Two standard Argo floats will be deployed during the voyage as part of the international Argo program .
• Indigenous Time at Sea Scholarship (Dr Ben Arthur, CSIRO): Two Indigenous university students will be on the voyage to gain experience and training in at-sea research operations.

The science team on this voyage will have 25 science participants (and 21 crew) representing four institutions.

Voyage outcomes

A summary of voyage outcomes will be published approximately 3-6 months after the completion of the voyage.