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Midnight Sunset

December 12, 2015

WHOI Summer Student Fellow Astrid Pacini captured a serene midnight sunset on a research cruise off Iceland in August. Pacini went as an ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) watch-stander with her mentor, scientist Bob Pickart. Aboard the fisheries vessel Bjarni Sómundsson, they collected water velocity measurements, part of Pickart’s collaboration with Icelandic researchers to study dense water flow into the Denmark Strait, a major contributor to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which helps drive global ocean circulation and climate. This was a rare calm day, Pickart said—weather during the cruise was bad even by Icelandic standards. (Photo by Astrid Pacini, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)