This is the eigth cruise to the Irminger Sea Global Array of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The Irminger Sea Global Array includes four moorings and a combination of Open Ocean and Global Profiling Gliders deployed off the southeast tip of Greenland, close to 39°W, 60°N. The location is one characterized by the strong air-sea interaction and wintertime water mass formation that supports the global thermohaline (a.k.a. meridional overturning circulation – MOC), where in recent years a freshening of the water column has been observed. The data from the array contributes to an improved understanding of the impact of both natural and climate variability in the region, as well as how these signals effect changes in ocean physics, chemistry, and biology and vice-versa.

The combination of the moored array and the gliders enables investigation into the role of processes at mesoscale and sub-mesoscale horizontal length scales through observations that sample the full water column, from the sea floor to the sea surface. The Surface Mooring provides unique time-history of observations of surface meteorology and air-sea fluxes.

For further information, see http://www.oceanobservatories.org.

Thie Irminger Sea 8 deployment cruise has the following primary objectives: deployment of new Surface Mooring, Hybrid Profiler Mooring, and two Flanking Moorings, and deployment of new Irminger Sea gliders tasked to patrol around the moored array; recovery of the Surface Mooring, Profiler Mooring, and Flanking Moorings deployed in June 2020; CTD casts with temperature, salinity and oxygen water sampling both for instrument validation and to further characterize the region of the mooring sites; and surveys using shipboard sensors (ADCP, EK-80, thermosalinograph, multibeam) in the Irminger moored array region.