This week, Texas A&M Oceanography Professor Dr. Alejandro Orsi is completing a 40-day, National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Antarctic research expedition in the Southern Ocean. Orsi has led the 4oceanography expedition to Antarctica as the chief scientist of the I6S Global Ocean Ship-based Hydrographic Investigation Program (GO-SHIP) Cruise.

Sailing on the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, the crew and science team have weathered waves of more than 66 feet and wind gusts of 70 knots, Orsi said.

Read the research team’s remarkable updates on the cruise’s blog and site, including:

• The majestic power of the Southern Ocean
• Conducting research among ‘pancake ice and furious seas’
• What do you eat while at sea for weeks?

“The overall science goal of the I6S GO-SHIP cruise is to learn how the southwestern portion of the Indian Ocean has changed over the past decades,” Orsi said. “Specifically, GO-SHIP long-term measurements seek to characterize how the deep ocean has warmed and freshened, to determine if the regional budgets of dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide have changed, and to estimate rates of nutrients depletion and ocean acidification.” 

Dr. Isabella Rosso, postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Institution Oceanography, University of California San Diego, is the cruise’s co-chief scientist.

Read more about the expedition here.

By Leslie Lee ’09