The National Natural Science Foundation of China 2010 shared cruise for the Western Pacific Ocean field experiments bestowed on the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) started from the Olympic sailing base in Qingdao on 15th November.

Carried by the “Kexue 1” research vessel, this cruise is to fulfill the research tasks of six projects sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China.  Fifty scientists from eight research agencies and universities, including IOCAS, Ocean University of China, Xiamen University, Tongji University, Tianjin University, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Ocean Technology Center, and The 715 Institute of China Shipbuilding Heavy Industry, attended this cruise.  The cruise is estimated to last for about 2 months.

The main focus of the cruise will be on the scientific problems in the western Pacific Ocean. Scientists will carry out intensified observational experiments in key areas in the western Pacific Ocean with emphasis on long time series observations and sectional hydrographic measurements of the transport and current structure of the low latitude western boundary currents.  In the mean time, scientists will investigate the bio-diversity and life cycles of prokaryotic photosynthetic organisms and their relation with the environments.  This experiment will get important observational data as never before in this area to understand the three-dimensional structure and variability of the Pacific low latitude western boundary current, to reveal the water mass distribution at the source of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF), and to understand the mass and heat exchange processes in the surface and subsurface current systems.

The areas of investigation of this cruise include the bifurcation of the North Equatorial Current (NEC), sources of the Kuroshio (KC) and the Mindanao Current (MC), and the entrance of ITF, covering totally 7 sections and 65 stations over the continental shelf, in the western Pacific warm pool, and in the open ocean non-warm pool areas.