SAMS news room

Studying the Atlantic on the Ellett Line expedition

A revolutionary insight by Dr Dave Ellett at SAMS back in 1975, led to the establishment of one of the world's longest-running ocean monitoring projects. Now in its 34th year, the Ellett Line project has this week begun its 2009 research cruise in the north-east Atlantic, as SAMS scientists onboard the UK research ship, RRS Discovery, sail from Iceland to the UK.

The ocean currents flowing north from the Atlantic towards the Arctic Ocean have been changing: temperature and salinity have fluctuated in recent years, leading to speculation that there may be knock-on effects on climate.