DynAMITE Cruise a Success!

After 29 days at sea, the DynAMITE cruise has come to an end, docking at Penno Wharf in Bermuda on Sunday, June 12th. The chief scientist Ruth Curry declared the mission a success and believes the data collected will significantly improve our understanding of deep mixing and circulation in the ocean.

Science Crew of the Dynamite cruise as the R/V Knorr arrives in Bermuda (from left: Kurt Polzin, Bob Petitt, Liz Douglass, Kevin Manganini, George Tupper, Amelia Snow, Fred Thwaites, Carolina Nobre, Dave Wellwood, Terry McKee, Ruth Curry, Leah Trafford)

What is DynAMITE?

This field program is investigating the processes by which the densest waters in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) are transformed into warmer, lighter density classes (Lower North Atlantic Deep Water: LNADW) and the circulation through the interior western basin that results. The dense waters originate as stratified inflows from the South (Antarctic Bottom Water: AABW) and from the North (Denmark Strait Overflow Water: DSOW). Along their flow paths, turbulent mixing causes these dense waters to entrain overlying warmer waters changing the characteristics of the bottom flows, weakening their stratification, and making them more buoyant. The resulting upward transfer of mass has consequences for the abyssal circulation and for ocean budgets of heat, mass and tracers that are important to Earth's climate system. Most of the water mass transformation takes place between 20° – 40° N where turbulent mixing is enhanced over rugged topography along the Mid Atlantic Ridge and Bermuda Rise, and in the high kinetic energy regime associated with the deep Gulf Stream. DynAMITE is designed to measure the structure and strength of this diapycnal mixing (where? how much? why?) and the flows through the interior western North Atlantic basin that result.