7 Fun Facts About RU27
Optical properties on the continental shelves are complex, representing
variable contributions of phytoplankton, Colored Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM),
and non-algal particles. Over the past few years, the amount of optical data
available via remote or in situ observations rapidly expanded. These
observations have proven to be very effective at delineating hydrographic
features not evident in the traditional physical data that are currently
assimilated into numerical forecast models.
In this project, researches from Rutgers University, the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, Dalhousie University and the California
Polytechnic State University are working together combining physical and
optical observations with models to enhance our understanding of coastal
processes.
The main goals of the project are:
In order to accomplish these goals, we are currently working on:
The
X-Band dish (right) was installed in the Fall of 2003 and collects MODIS
data from NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites, as well as ocean color data from
India's Oceansat satellite.
Data are processed to into various products (i.e., sea surface temperature,
ocean color, etc.) and then converted jpeg images are made for easy
downloading and viewing. There are detailed product descriptions on each
product page. Sea Surface Temperature is our largest image library, with
imagery reaching back to 1993. Chlorophyll Concentration imagery goes back
to 2001. Our other image archives begin in 2004.
Oceanography is augmenting the ship-based expeditionary science of the last
two centuries with a distributed, observatory-based approach in which
scientists continuously interact with instruments, facilities, and other
scientists to explore the earth-ocean-atmosphere system remotely. In order
to provide the U.S. ocean sciences research community with access to the
basic infrastructure required to make sustained, long-term and adaptive
measurements in the oceans, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Ocean
Sciences Division has initiated the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).
Routine, long-term measurement of episodic oceanic processes on a wide range
of spatial and temporal scales is crucial to resolving scientific questions
related to Earth’s climate, geodynamics, and marine ecosystems. Innovative
ocean observatories providing unprecedented levels of power and
communication and access to real-time sensor networks will drive scientific
innovation and provide education and outreach capabilities that will
dramatically impact the general understanding of, and public attitude
toward, the ocean sciences.
The OOI comprises three distributed yet interconnected observatories
spanning global, regional and coastal scales that when the data is combined
will provide will allow scientists study a range of high priority processes
highlighted by the community. The OOI CyberInfrastructure (CI) constitutes
the integrating element that links and binds the three types of marine
observatories and associated sensors into a coherent system-of-systems.
The objective of the OOI CI is to provide a comprehensive federated system
of observatories, laboratories, classrooms, and facilities that realizes the
OOI mission. The infrastructure provided to research scientists through the
OOI will include the sea floor cables combined with water column fixed and
mobile systems. The CI initiative also includes components such as unified
project management, data dissemination and archiving, and education and
outreach activities essential to the long-term success of ocean observatory
science. The vision of the OOI CI is to provide the OOI user, beginning at
the science community, with a system that enables simple and direct use of
OOI resources to accomplish their scientific objectives. This vision
includes direct access to instrument data, control, and operational
activities described above, and the opportunity to seamlessly collaborate
with other scientists, institutions, projects, and disciplines.
COSEE-NOW proposes to use information generated by ocean observing systems (OOS)
as a powerful platform to enhance public literacy about the ocean and
stimulate public support for ocean research.
The mission of COSEE-NOW is to enable use of transformative ocean research
and effective education practices to inspire students and the general public
in ocean exploration, discovery, and stewardship.
COSEE-NOW has identified three key areas of investment that combine the
resources and experiences of the project PIs to promote high-quality OOS
education and public outreach (EPO) and contribute to the COSEE network.
The goals include:
A thematic COSEE- Networked Ocean World (NOW) can be used as a vehicle to
provide educational leadership as observatories continue to transition from
vision to reality. This COSEE’s efforts will serve as the pathfinder for
collaborative EPO activities associated with existing as well as new
observatories, visualizations, and cyberinfrastructure technologies that
will come online in the next five to ten years.
COSEE NOW will address identified OOS community needs including the
development of a community of educator leaders, the creation of a coherent
collection of education products, and the implementation of a strategy for
delivering these products and messages to target user groups. In addition,
we will provide the bridge linking the scientific and societal needs of
ocean observatories while promoting teaching and learning, broadening the
participation of underrepresented audiences, enhancing education
infrastructure, and disseminating our results to educators and scientists
alike.
CORE Staff will ensure the Center’s goals are met and will convene the
advisory committee and task forces. Project partners will manage specific
Center tasks. In the future, additional project partners will be included,
as the collaborative and cooperative nature of COSEE will help leverage
funding in related areas.
COSEE-NOW, its partners, goals, and objectives, have been assembled and
organized to meet needs that have been articulated by the OOS science and
EPO communities as noted in this proposal’s letters of support. Our prior
experience in the COSEE network, proven track record in OOS EPO, and our
understanding of qualities for successful partnerships will serve us well as
we pursue the tasks outlined in this proposal.
Success of the ocean networks will be measured by improved scientific
understanding of the oceans and improved ocean literacy of human society.
The proposed COSEE-NOW will build the scientist-educator partnerships
necessary to create a networked ocean world.
“I walk into our control room, with its panoply of views of the sea. There
are the updated global pictures from the remote sensors on satellites, there
the evolving maps of subsurface variables, there the charts that show the
position and status of all our Slocum scientific platforms, and I am
satisfied that we are looking at the ocean more intensely and more deeply
than anyone anywhere else.” Henry Stommel (1989)
Exploring the global ocean has been a fundamental factor driving human
society. Historically humans have relied on ships to provide platforms to
live, travel and explore the oceans for centuries. After ships, the next
great technical evolution in ocean exploration was the development of
satellite remote sensing. This revolution in the 1970’s provided a synoptic
global perspective that has fundamentally altered our view of the world’s
surface ocean. The advent of ocean robots in the last decade have ushered in
the next technical revolution in oceanography. The robots provide a large
subsurface picture of the ocean. We in the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab are
committed to moving the robot revolution forward.
In Lithuania in 2006, Dr. Rick Spinrad from NOAA sat us down. He looked at
us and began the conversation with, “For the good of your country, you must
inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and I want you to
cross an ocean basin with a robot.” That was daunting… Since then in
collaboration with Webb Research, we have focused on Dr. Sprinrad’s
challenges. We believe that developing a permanent presence in the ocean
using robots is a powerful tool to inspiring the next generation of the
scientists and engineers. Therefore we wish to develop long duration flights
and to have these missions conducted by young scientists during their
undergraduate years. We believe this will be critical showing young people
that science, engineering and exploration is the most rewarding career
possible.
Optical properties are complex
representing variable contributions of phytoplankton, Colored Dissolved
Organic Matter (CDOM), marine and atmospherically derived non-algal
particles. The relative contributions of these are particularly complex for
enclosed inland seas such as the Mediterranean. It is critical to collect
regional ocean color data from satellites which must be complemented with
spatial subsurface measurements. The development of autonomous platforms
outfitted with a range of physical/optical sensor packages offer great
potential. Slocum Coastal Gliders make an ideal platform when coupled with
the appropriate optical sensor suite. The utility of the Glider has lead to
the development of Glider Operations Center (GOC) which allows operators
anywhere in the world to remotely control and visualize Glider data which
can also be easily merged with numerical model data outputs and/or remote
sensing imagery.
Glider data will address the importance of atmospheric dust in the
Mediterranean. The importance of atmospherically derived nutrients has been
shown and its role to marine ecology and productivity has been frequently
hypothesized. For example, in the Mediterranean, dust from the Sahara and
northern European countries is hypothesized to account for up 15% of the new
production and up to 14% of the total primary production in the
Mediterranean; however documenting deposition and its relationship to
primary productivity over the time (weeks to months) and space (100-1000 of
kilometers) scales that these processes operate has been difficult. This has
forced workers to rely on remote sensing; however these approaches are
susceptible to the presence of dust which mimics the presence of
phytoplankton in the satellite imagery. Ocean color algorithms use
remote-sensing reflectance to estimate the concentration of chlorophyll a.
In very clear waters the presence of dust can impact the accuracy of the
empirical algorithms. Given this, is the ocean signal associated with
atmospheric dust related to the stimulated phytoplankton productivity or is
it simply the dust itself? We must quantify the impact of dust on both the
in situ optical properties and biological communities over relevant spatial
(100 kms) and temporal (month) scales in oligotrophic waters.
Given these interests we will in this project:
A merged SST satellite, CODAR, and MURI sponsored Glider line. Capabilities also now exist to merge model outputs.
This international partnership is
focused on developing the technologies to document and understand how
changes in coastal waters impact the living resources and ecology of the
Norwegian coast and Southwestern Barents Sea. Polar ecosystems have been
experiencing dramatic changes over the last century. Warming air
temperatures are thawing perma-frost, increasing river discharge, and
thinning arctic ice. It is difficult to account for these changes through
natural variability, and human activity has been implicated; however the
role of both low frequency basin scale cycles and episodic events remains an
open question. Additionally, ship traffic has increased and the production
and shipping of oil and gas is expanding in the sub-arctic. The Barents Sea
is also exposed to pollution from large rivers (Ob, Lena and the Yenisey)
and Russian military installations which have been a source of nuclear
waste. All these represent complex international issues that effect coastal
waters, spanning multiple temporal and spatial scales and requiring the
collection of relevant spatial time series data
The challenge of collecting continuous time-series data in oceans is
formidable as only the surface is accessible with space-based remote sensing
or shore-based radars. Physical hydrography and biogeochemical parameters
are highly variable and coupled over a wide range of spatial and temporal
scales (meters to thousands of kilometers, hours to decades) that cannot be
adequately sampled using traditional sampling methods. This will require the
development of sub-surface robotic networks. Time-series observations are
needed to resolve both the mean and variance of parameters associated with
episodic events, as well as those that occur on seasonal, annual, and
interdecadal scales. This partnership in the coming decade will lay the
foundation for developing a comprehensive understanding of biogeochemical
cycles and temporal trends that will enable the development,
parameterization, initialization and validation of global coastal
biogeochemical models. The goal is develop a joint undergraduate program
where the international cadre of students become the implementation team for
deploying cutting edge new robotic networks to study the potential climate
responses in the Antarctic.
The proposed international collaboration focused on impact of the Norwegian coastal current (NCC) on the southern Barents Sea physical oceanography and biogeochemistry. The grey lines indicate the major currents. The dotted black line shows mean climatological winter sea ice extent. The solid red lines indicate cross-shore surveys that will be conducted monthly using a combination of AUVs. The broken red lines indicate the along shore Langragian surveys (each survey is designated by the arrow) to be conducted during spring or summer process studies. The solid blue lines indicate the existing and funded shore-based surface Norwegian surface current radar nests.
Finally, this ability to obtain real time data from gliders was paramount for the adaptive sampling requirements of 21st century studies in ocean dynamics and biology.
The ability to map the concentration and productivity of
phytoplankton is a key to understanding the biogeochemistry of Earth. While
great progress has been made to in mapping the concentration of the
phytoplankton using ocean color techniques, the ability to measure rate
processes remains difficult. Our group has been developing new platforms
(cables & robots) for exploring the world’s oceans. As these technologies
represent the future of ocean exploration and new sensors must be developed
for these platforms. The buoyancy driven gliders represent the most
challenging platforms as these systems require small sensors that have
minimal power requirements. Therefore the goal of this project is to develop
a new sensor that can measure the health of the phytoplankton with a sensor
capable of being carried on a Webb Slocum glider. Over the last decade,
chlorophyll fluorescence measurements have provided unprecedented insights
into the factors controlling phytoplankton physiology and primary production
in the ocean. The technique relies on active stimulation and detection of
the induction and subsequent relaxation of chlorophyll fluorescence yields
on micro- and millisecond time scales. Analysis of the induced variable
fluorescence provides a comprehensive suite of fluorescent and
photosynthetic parameters of the phytoplankton. From these, a detailed
picture of photosynthetic status can be deduced. The measured parameters
provide the basis to model gross primary productivity and assess the impact
of environmental stresses. This project will build a miniature Fluorescence
Induction and Relaxation (FIRe) System for Webb Gliders. This project will
demonstrate the FIRe mounted on a Webb Glider.
Our results to date:
The goal of this research is to develop new infrastructure, theories, algorithms, engineering solutions and cross-disciplinary curricula to future challenging problems in oceanography. The specific goals include:
Background: Rip Current Circulation
Rip currents are the number one cause of ocean drowning and rescue incidents
along the coasts of the United States. According to the United States
Lifesaving Association (USLA), 71% of the total surf zone rescues, 12,137
incidents, in 2003 were due to rip currents. Rip currents are strong
near-shore features with cross-shore velocities on the order of 1 m/s and
along-shore scales of tens of meters. Mechanisms for rip formation include
wave-bottom boundary interaction, wave-wave interaction, and wave-current
interaction (Dalrymple, 1975; Dalrymple, 1978; Sonu, 1972). Longshore
currents are driven by a radiation stress generated by wave breaking. The
theory is well developed. Less well developed is the theory for cross-shelf
currents in the surface zone, rip currents. The approach in California is to
use hf radar currents as the outer boundary to drive inner Shelf models.
Wave height, period, and direction are a second input required at the
boundary. Increased wave and current observations nearshore will help
researchers to better understand the conditions favorable for rip current
formation, and ultimately provide the necessary boundary conditions to
predict rip currents.
Project goals and objectives
The Western
Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is undergoing some of the most dramatic climate
changes on Earth. The WAP region has experienced a winter warming trend
during the past half century that is ~5.4 times the global average.
Understanding these changes is extremely difficult to unravel and the
unprecedented changes we are observing might be a harbinger of the potential
changes in the future oceans.
As ocean ecosystems are changing and developing the capacity to resolve
those changes and understand the implications for humanity is a clarion call
for oceanography. Traditional modes of sampling will not suffice and efforts
must be focused on developing networks capable of operating in a harsh
environment and maintaining themselves for sustained periods at sea. The
proposed robotic network will provide the critical advance needed by the
community. We also emphasize that the proposed network is modular and could
be relocated to any coastal shelf and scaled up to basin scales.
We will combine physical/biogeochemical robotic sampling to enable
ship-based adaptive sampling over ecologically relevant spatial scales. The
robotic network will also provide ecosystem data when ships are not
available. We call this flexible and smart network a Darwin cluster. Over
the relevant scales, the Darwin cluster will provide a long-term in situ
network of sensors and instruments that operates in a manner similar to an
insect hive with a distributed network of “worker” robots, all of which have
specific capabilities that collectively and cooperatively serve the
specified needs of a centralized, shore-based “brain.”
The data collected will provide critical spatial data for numerical
ecosystem modeling. We propose to use the robots to study the dynamical
interaction between the atmospheric forcing, physical mixing and
phytoplankton concentration, metabolism and diversity. These data will be
combined with active and passive acoustic sampling of higher trophic levels.
This robotic network will be flexible in its sampling strategies in order to
adjust on the fly as the ecosystem evolves in response to the physical
forcing of the ocean. Initial priority will be given to ‘biological
hotspots” along the Antarctic peninsula which are key areas for
biogeochemistry, phytoplankton productivity, and higher trophic level
feeding (zooplankton, penguins, whales, seals). The robotic networks data
will also allow for adaptive sampling when ships are in the vicinity. This
effort will directly leverage off an NSF sponsored Long Term Ecological
Research (LTER) program being conducted along the WAP.