The Rapid Climate Change-Meridional Overturning Circulation and Heatflux Array (RAPID or MOCHA) program is a collaborative research project between the National Oceanography Centre (Southampton, U.K.), the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science (RSMAS), and NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) that measure the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) and ocean heat transport in the North Atlantic Ocean.
[1] This array was deployed in March 2004 to continuously monitor the MOC and ocean heat transport that are primarily associated with the Thermohaline Circulation across the basin at 26°N.
This monitoring array directly measures the transport of the Gulf Stream in the Florida Strait using an undersea cable and a moored array measures bottom pressure and water column density (including temperature and salinity) at the western and eastern boundary and on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR).
[3] Absolute transports including barotropic circulation are monitored using precision bottom pressure gauges.
[5] The basin-wide MOC strength and vertical structure are estimated via Ekman transports by satellite scatterometer measurements and the geostrophic and direct current observations.