MD 148 / PECTEN
Type | Oceanographic cruise |
---|---|
Ship | Marion Dufresne |
Ship owner | TAAF |
Dates | 12/06/2005 - 08/07/2005 |
Chief scientist(s) | BEAUFORT Luc |
CENTRE EUROPÉEN DE RECHERCHE ET D'ENSEIGNEMENT DE GÉOSCIENCES DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT - UM 34 UMR CNRS 7330, IRD 161 Technopôle environnement Arbois-Méditerranée BP 80 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 4 +33(0)4 42 97 15 00 |
|
DOI | 10.17600/5200080 |
Objective | The main objectives of the MD148-PECTEN (Past Equatorial Climate: Tracking El Niño) cruise were to reconstruct the past climate variations on different time scales in the western Equatorial Pacific Ocean. This region is particularly interesting for the study of climate trends. It is the seat of significant deep atmospheric convection which is behind the oscillation called El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO. Vertical movements of air which form the convection are due to very high surface seawater temperatures in this region. The PECTEN mission is the thirteenth strand of the IMAGES programme devoted to studying climate variations over the past 900,000 years by analyzing marine sediment core samples. Knowledge about long term climate variations in the western Pacific is essential in order to understand the climate system on a global scale. And yet, this region of the world is very poorly known from that point of view. A few sediment cores sampled in the region have helped us to better understand changes in the climate on the scale of a million years or even that of about ten thousand years. However, nothing is known yet about faster climate variations (from 10 to 1,000 years) in this area. The spaces to be explored during this mission had to show high sedimentation rates (between 10 and 4,000 centimeters per thousand years). So the sediment collected may provide essential archives for the study of past climates. The related programmes are: the international IMAGES programme and the IGBP (International Geosphere - Biosphere Program). |