Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the RRS James Cook has been operating in the coastal waters of the Western Sahara; what was the nature of its research; and what instruments it deployed.

The RRS James Cook is part of the Government funded national sustained observational programme called RAPID. This long-term programme’s aim is to monitor the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) in the North Atlantic at the latitude of 26 degrees north. The MOC determines the Atlantic ocean’s transport of heat, freshwater, carbon, and other environmental properties. It is central to understanding the role of the thermohaline circulation in global climate change. The RRS James Cook recovered and redeployed a number of oceanographic moorings fitted with conductivity and temperature sensors, which were distributed at a range of depths on moorings.