A WINTER cruise to the North Atlantic's Rockall Trough would not appeal to most seafarers but ocean scientist Penny Holliday cannot wait.

She sets sail from Southampton on Thursday on board RRS Discovery as co-principal scientist, to study the effects of global warming and changes in the ocean that affect our climate.

"We are expecting stormy weather and 30-foot waves. Although we won't be able to work on deck in a Force 7 wind these storms are the reason we are working in Rockall,'' she said.

"The area is extremely important for the UK's climate. During the winter, heat that has been stored over the summer months is mixed into the upper ocean and the atmosphere. Our climate would be much colder if this heat energy was not released from the ocean depths.''

The team of scientists will be taking a series of casts every 20 miles along a 650-mile stretch of water from Scotland to Iceland. Equipment that measures salinity and temperature is hauled over the ship's side, taking samples at different levels from the seafloor to the surface.

"We are going to measure any changes to the inflow and outflow between the Nordic Sea and the North Atlantic. Because we are studying a marine environment we have a multi-discipline team of physicists, chemists and biologists on board.''

This research builds on a time series study that was started by Scottish scientists in the 1970s. The data collected so far suggest that changes do occur from year to year. The Southampton team will be looking for evidence of long-term trends such as the recent high winter sea temperatures recently reported around Scotland.

The cruise is jointly funded by Southampton Oceanography Centre and the Natural Environment Research Council's Centre for Coastal and Marine Sciences - CCMS. The other principal scientist is Colin Griffiths from CCMS's Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory.

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