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Heavy Lifting

August 8, 2017

The rear deck of R/V Neil Armstrong was full of gear—including these 7,700-pound mooring anchors—as the ship left on a recent three-week cruise to recover and deploy instruments at the Irminger Sea Array southeast of Greenland. The group of four deep-water moorings and five autonomous gliders is one of the Ocean Observatories Initiative Global Arrays funded by the National Science Foundation and maintained by WHOI. The array is strategically positioned to provide long-term, round-the-clock monitoring of ocean and atmospheric conditions in a region that is an important part of Earth’s climate system, and to integrate into other international monitoring efforts nearby. (Photo by Thomas Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)