Latest Results

The most recent cruise to the Rockall Trough took place in May 2011. Data from the recent cruises show that the upper layers of the Rockall Trough during the last 7 years have been warm and salty compared to the long-term (30 year) mean.

The graphs shows the temperature and salinity averaged over the top 800m of water. There are 2 lines for each property; the thin dashed line shows individual cruises, while the solid line is a 3-point running mean which draws attention to the long term changes we are interested in.

In the deeper waters, the Labrador Sea Water (LSW) remains cool and fresh compared to the long-term mean. The source region of LSW, the Labrador Basin, showed dramatic freshening and cooling in the 1990s when unusually deep winter convection took place (0.05 and 0.5C at 1800m), followed by a similar increase from 1998 onwards. The changes seen here in the Rockall Trough may reflect those large changes in the Labrador Sea.