EPOC’s research depends on direct observations from the ocean. Our AMOC expeditions are seagoing research cruises, mostly across the North Atlantic, where scientists deploy and recover moorings, take water samples, and run hydrographic profiles to capture how the AMOC is changing.
Six AMOC expeditions have taken place since the project began in 2022. Some are dedicated EPOC cruises; others are AMOC expeditions led by partner projects, where EPOC researchers contribute or recover data. Click the cards below to read expedition blogs, see photos, and find data from each cruise.
EPOC fieldwork builds on decades of sustained AMOC observations led by RAPID at 26°N and the international OSNAP array in the subpolar Atlantic.
18 Sept - 9 Oct 2025. RV L'Atalante recovered 9 mooring lines and 3 bottom pressure recorders deployed two years earlier at the Flemish Cap. The team also ran 42 CTD stations to investigate how the Deep Western Boundary Current interacts with seafloor topography and the North Atlantic Current.
30 July - 2 Sept 2025. RV Meteor measured deep-water transports and recovered instruments around the Flemish Cap deployed two years earlier. The cruise targeted the Transition Zone, where ocean models show the AMOC's north-south coherence starts to break down.
1 - 29 August 2024. RV Thalassa visited mooring sites in the Transition Zone as part of IFREMER's wider programme. The cruise tested adaptive glider sampling to track frontal systems between subpolar and subtropical waters.
28 March - 3 April 2024. RRS Discovery serviced AMOC monitoring moorings on the eastern side of the RAPID 26°N array. The short cruise was part of the RAPID programme, which has maintained continuous AMOC measurements at 26°N since 2004.
23 Sept - 16 Oct 2023. RV Maria S. Merian deployed mooring array at the Flemish Cap. The 14 inverted echo sounders and 9 tall mooring lines captured two years of data across the frontal zone between the North Atlantic Current and the Deep Western Boundary Current.
5 Feb - 10 Mar 2023. EPOC joined the RAPID 26°N expedition to deploy two Sonardyne pressure sensors at the long-running AMOC monitoring array. The new sensors test whether the barotropic component of AMOC transport can be measured directly, rather than inferred from assumptions.