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Into the Cold

WHOI physical oceanographer Robert Pickart is currently leading an international team on board the NATO research vessel Alliance to get a close-up look at a poorly understood, but critical, part of the ocean: the North Atlantic in winter. Pickart and his team are looking at coupled atmosphere-ocean processes that occur between Iceland and Greenland, particularly periodic intrusions of cold air off the pack ice into a region where ocean currents release heat to the atmosphere as part of Earth’s climate system. In addition to ship-based measurements, their work is being bolstered by data gathered during periodic overflights of their study area by an aircraft flown by a collaborating team of meteorologists. (Photo by Amanda Kowalski)