A climate mission at sea off the coast of Brazil

This past spring, the Amaryllis-Amagas mission took place off the coast of Brazil, aboard the legendary Marion Dufresne, the largest ship of the French oceanographic fleet. Jeffrey Poort, an engineer at ISTeP, and Natacha Kaminski, a Master's student in physics, were part of the month-long adventure, collecting data to better understand the role of the Amazon region in the Earth's climate system. Natacha, you're a master's student in physics at Sorbonne University. How did you get involved in this adventure? Natacha Kaminski: I was interested in oceanographic research and had done my third-year internship at the Oceanographic and Climate Laboratory (Laboratoire d'Océanographie et du Climat (LOCEAN)) and, during my university career, I chose options in oceanography. At the "Campus océan" forum organized by the Ocean Institute at Sorbonne University in October 2022, I stopped by the stand of the Paris Earth Science Institute (Institut des Sciences de la Terre de Paris (ISTeP)), which was exhibiting a core of sediment from the ocean floor. They were looking for a student intern. I took the plunge, was accepted as an intern and was given the opportunity to spend a month on mission for the first part of the Amaryllis-Amagas offshore voyage.