Damit stellten sich zwei neue Herausforderungen: Zum einen musste ein neuer Plan ausgearbeitet werden, um unter den besonderen Bedingungen des kommenden Tages bestm\u00f6gliche wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse zu erzielen. Zum anderen galt es, das Sargassumband erneut zu lokalisieren. Besonders schwierig war dabei, dass inzwischen die Nacht hereingebrochen war. Mit blo\u00dfem Auge war kaum noch etwas zu erkennen, geschweige denn ein Sargassumfeld in der Ferne auszumachen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mit Hilfe leistungsstarker, fernsteuerbarer Xenon-Richtstrahler, also gro\u00dfer Suchscheinwerfer die von der Br\u00fccke aus bedient werden, durchsuchten wir den Bereich rund um die Meteor<\/em> nach den treibenden Braunalgen. Noch wirkungsvoller war jedoch das Wellenradar (X-Band-Radar), das empfindlich genug ist, um gr\u00f6\u00dfere Sargassumfelder in einem Umkreis von bis zu f\u00fcnf Kilometern zu erkennen. Auf dem Radar zeigte sich, dass das Sargassumband eine L\u00e4nge von rund zehn Kilometern hatte. Dank dieser beiden Methoden gelang es uns, das Band auch in der Dunkelheit wiederzufinden und \u00fcber Nacht die Position zu halten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Am n\u00e4chsten Tag gelang es uns, den Slick erfolgreich zu beproben. Dabei handelt es sich um Meeresoberfl\u00e4chenph\u00e4nomene, die den Austausch von Gasen und Energie zwischen Atmosph\u00e4re und Ozean ma\u00dfgeblich beeinflussen k\u00f6nnen. Es wurden zahlreiche Proben genommen, und nahezu alle wissenschaftlichen Ger\u00e4te kamen zum Einsatz, um die besonderen Bedingungen im und um den Slick umfassend zu erfassen. Am Ende eines langen Tages waren alle Wissenschaftler*innen m\u00fcde, aber gl\u00fccklich \u2013 es hatte sich definitiv gelohnt, die urspr\u00fcnglichen Pl\u00e4ne \u00fcber Bord zu werfen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n U-Turn at night<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Text: Christopher Noisel and Martin P\u00f6ppelreiter. Photos: Henning Burmeister, Carsten Rauch, Leonie Jaeger<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evening before last, a spontaneous decision was made to turn back, even though we were already full speed ahead on our way to the next station. The trigger was an extensive area of Sargassum<\/em>, floating brown algae commonly found in warmer seas that provides important habitats for marine organisms. This area was associated with a so-called slick, a smooth water surface formed by biological processes, often indicating special ecological conditions. The formation was deemed too significant to simply pass by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This created two new challenges: on the one hand, a new plan had to be developed to achieve the best possible scientific results under the special conditions expected the next day. On the other hand, the Sargassum<\/em> band had to be relocated. This was particularly difficult as night had now fallen. With the naked eye, hardly anything could be seen, let alone spotting a Sargassum<\/em> field in the distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using powerful, remotely controlled Xenon searchlights operated from the bridge, we scanned the area around the Meteor<\/em> for the drifting brown algae. Even more effective was the wave radar (X-band radar), sensitive enough to detect larger Sargassum<\/em> fields within a radius of up to five kilometers. On the radar, the Sargassum<\/em> band appeared to be about ten kilometers long. Thanks to these two methods, we were able to relocate the band even in the dark and hold position overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, we successfully sampled the slick. Slicks are sea surface phenomena that significantly influence the exchange of gases and energy between the atmosphere and the ocean. Numerous samples were taken, and almost all scientific instruments were deployed to comprehensively capture the unique conditions in and around the slick. At the end of a long day, all the scientists were tired but happy \u2014 it had definitely been worth throwing the original plans overboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text: Christophe Noisel, Pia G\u00f6cke, Martin P\u00f6ppelreiter. Fotos: Henning Burmeister, Carsten Rauch, Leonie Jaeger Vorgestern Abend fiel spontan die Entscheidung, eine Kehrtwende einzuleiten \u2013 obwohl wir bereits mit voller Fahrt…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-home","entry"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.12.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3467"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3481,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3467\/revisions\/3481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/icbm-auf-see.uni-oldenburg.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Picture1-1.jpg\")
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