Deep‑Water Sensor Recovery and Redeployment in the Florida Straits – summer 2024

In June–July 2024, C-Streams colleagues from the UK and the US completed a successful field campaign in the Florida Straits to collect instrumentation deployed at the very start of the Gulf Stream.

The team travelled out of and into Miami to recover a suite of deep‑water biogeochemical sensors measuring pCO₂, pH, nitrate, temperature, salinity, oxygen, and ocean currents (ADCP) that had been in the water since the previous year.

During the operation, the team noted that the main Stablemoor buoyancy at the top of one of the moorings showed clear signs of a suspected shark bite, adding an unexpected twist to the recovery.

Following retrieval, the instruments were serviced and refurbished before being redeployed in the same deep‑water location for a further 12‑month period. These unprecedented high resolution long‑term observations will provide invaluable insight into the changing biogeochemistry and physical dynamics of one of the world’s most important ocean currents.