WHAT DO A RACING YACHT AND A 250FT RESEARCH VESSEL HAVE IN COMMON ?

On 8 June 2021 the Research Vessel (RV) Thalassa left Toulon, France to embark on a three week survey. The transects of the survey crossed the Ligurian Sea region that The Ocean Race Europe passed through during the last days of the Race to Genoa. Like the sailors in The Ocean Race Europe, these scientists were on a 24–7 work schedule to complete a mission. The schedule for surveys like this consists of several sampling stops at predetermined ‘stations’. By lowering a CTD [pictured above] into the water, measurements from different depths in the water column provide a vertical profile of temperature and salinity conditions from the surface to the depths (CTD stands for Conductivity (used to derive salinity), Temperature, Depth). Unlike the racing sailors who pass as quickly as possible through the area, a CTD deployment at one of these sampling stations might last up to 2 hours, the length of time it takes to lower the equipment at a speed of 1 m/s , down to a maximum depth of 2800 m.

Scientists Dr. Pierre Testor, Soeren Thomsen, Laurent Coppola, Thibaut Wagener and Andre Mounier were onboard the RV Thalassa. Their research is part of the Mediterranean Ocean Observing System for the Environment (MOOSE). MOOSE is an integrated observation network, operated as part of a European cooperation to support the research and long-term monitoring of Mediterranean marine ecosystems.

The EuroSea Program is led by a consortium of research centers and universities with the objective of improving and integrating the European Ocean Observing and Forecasting System. One of the project focus to which the collected data contributed was a “carbon-audit” of the European waters, particularly areas of relevant deep convection (i.e. water mixing), and an evaluation of these waters’ economic value in a climate change context.

The Ocean Race Europe data was sent to the scientists onboard the RV Thalassa. Alongside long-term data from years of survey cruises and in-situ moored scientific buoys, the data from the racing boats are used to improve models of how carbon is being absorbed by this northwest Mediterranean carbon sink. All of this research into the ocean’s role absorbing carbon dioxide is currently part of the EuroSea programme, an EU-funded ocean research programme. One of the outputs of this programme is a ‘carbon audit’ that focuses on monitoring carbon uptake by the ocean in the Western Mediterranean (read more here). The ‘carbon audit’ involves:

1. an estimate on how much carbon is sequestered in a certain area over time [to which the collected data feeds into];

2. an economic framework to estimate the value of this "ocean service”.

Previous survey cruises have contributed to understanding of the deep sea convection in the Mediterranean Sea and the team of scientists continue to build insights about processes and changes in this important carbon sink.