A big part of any oceanographic research cruise: Taking water samples.

Here is a group of students practicing how to arm Niskin bottles that will go into the ocean open on both ends, and that will then, when the whole rosette is on its way up again, be closed one after another at depths that promise to be interesting in terms of water properties.

Arming those Niskin bottles is actually not as easy as it looks, there is a strong spring going through the bottle, connecting the lids. And it is actually pretty painful if you accidentally close the bottles while some part of your body is between the bottle and the lid. Ask me how I know…

When the bottles are all open, the rosette can be lifted off the deck and into the sea.

Usually, rosettes are equipped with instrumentation in addition to the Niskin bottles, usually a CTD, measuring conductivity (to calculate the salinity from), temperature, and depth (actually measuring pressure, which converts easily into depth). I contributed to a very nice movie about how CTDs work a couple of years ago, check it out!

And now the rosette is finally in the water.

Water samples in physical oceanography are mainly used to calibrate the sensors on the CTD, which give (pretty much) continuous measurements throughout the whole depth of the water column. And that’s also what we want to use our water samples for — we have a hand-held conductivity probe that is right now producing values that cannot be correct. How we are going to deal with that? We (and you!) will find out tomorrow! :-)