Event
Tour of Research Vessel NOAA - Ronald H. Brown
Local meteorologists and other specially invited guests recently joined United States Embassy Chargé d’Affaires D. Brent Hardt on board the research vessel NOAA RONALD H. BROWN for a tour and reception.
The event which took place on Thursday July 9th, 2009 saw the group being taken on tour of the multi-purpose research ship by Operations Officer Nicole Manning.
The RONALD BROWN which is named in honor a former United States Commerce Secretary has had missions in this region before but it was the first time for Chargé Hardt on board.
“Since the ship is coming through here so often and doing research relating to the atmosphere and the sea, we thought that it would be a good chance to get some of the scientific community from Barbados on board to see first-hand how the ship operates,” Mr. Hardt noted after the tour.
The United States flagged research vessel NOAA RONALD H. BROWN will conduct scientific research from July 11th to August 10th, 2009. The Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory is the sponsoring institution for the mission.
The project is targeted at studying the atmosphere-ocean interactions, the West African Monsoon and the features that propagate offshore from the west coast of Africa. The specific goals of the Ronald H. Brown cruise are to investigate the role of the ocean for the climate of the South Atlantic, the West African Monsoon and the atmospheric features that propagate from Africa to the Atlantic and can develop into tropical cyclones.
This cruise will collect atmospheric and oceanographic data and recover, service and redeploy moored buoys that make up the Prediction and Research moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA) project.