National Ocean Service Podcasts

National Ocean Service Podcasts

Interdisciplinary Research Symposium

Monday, 29 October 2012, 5-7:30 PM

University of Alaska Fairbanks Wood Center Ballroom

Please join the University of Alaska Fairbanks Resilience and Adaptation Program for our first Interdisciplinary Research Symposium! The event is free and open to UAF students, faculty, the public, or anyone interested in interdisciplinary research and Arctic issues. The event includes a student poster session, keynote speaker with extended question and answer session, and light food and drinks.

5:00-6:00 PM                        Student Poster Session

 

6:00-6:45 PM            Keynote Presentation: Oran R. Young, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara

Governance in Turbulent Times: Where is the Arctic going, and what should we do about it?

 

6:45-7:30 PM                        Panel Discussion and Question & Answer Session

Interdisciplinary Poster Session: 

UAF undergraduate or graduate students with interdisciplinary research projects or work that focuses on the topics of human-environmental relationships, conservation, sustainability, resilience, adaptation, vulnerability, and transformation are encouraged to bring a poster to share! Work from any stage in the research process is invited, and posters from previous conferences are welcome. Poster printing support is available to a limited number of students, and a $500 conference travel grant will be awarded to one participating student! 

To sign up for the poster session, please e-mail rap.students@gmail.com with your name, department, title of your poster and 1-2 sentence description. Let us know if you would like support for printing your poster. Someone will follow up with you with further information, but Posters must be hung between 4:30 and 5 PM on Monday. The travel grant will be awarded at the end of the keynote presentation (must be present to win). 

Keynote Presentation Description:

From Dr. Young: In this lecture, I argue that the Arctic treated as a socio-ecological system will experience increased volatility during the foreseeable future and that this development will heighten the need for governance to maintain the resilience of the system. I then turn to the development of a toolkit for those responsible for governance in turbulent times. In the process, I discuss the need for enhanced monitoring and reporting systems, the uses of simulation and scenarios to increase understanding of emergent properties in complex systems, the prospects for devising early warning indicators, approaches to decision making under uncertainty, and procedures to improve adaptiveness in volatile settings. What is needed to integrate these measures into a coherent package is a discourse that articulates the rationale for governance in turbulent times and provides guidance for those seeking to bring these tools to bear in addressing specific problems.

More information:

For questions or more information, please email rap.students@gmail.com.

This symposium is possible due to the generous support of the UAF Resilience and Adaptation Program, the UAF Graduate School, and the Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity program.  

Human Impacts on the Oceans

Antarctic seas in the balance: Plans to protect swathes of ocean face tough test.

By Daniel Cressey

October 17, 2012

http://www.nature.com/news/antarctic-seas-in-the-balance-1.11600

"Rich in fish, minerals and scientific potential, the seas around Antarctica are among the planet’s most pristine waters — but fishing vessels are already moving in. Next week, negotiators at a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR, pronounced ‘cam-lar’) may try to contain the accelerating rush to access the region’s natural resources. At stake is one of the planet’s last great wildernesses — as well as the credibility of the international body set up to protect Antarctica’s marine life."

The Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS)

Source: http://www.scar.org/soos/

 

The Southern Ocean provides the principal connection between the Earth's ocean basins and between the upper and lower layers of the global ocean circulation. As a result, the Southern Ocean strongly influences climate patterns and the cycling of carbon and nutrients. Changes in the Southern Ocean would therefore have global ramifications. However, the short and incomplete nature of existing time series makes the causes and consequences of observed changes difficult to assess. Sustained, multi-disciplinary observations are required to detect, interpret and respond to change.

The Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) plan outlines the scientific rationale and strategy for the SOOS; identifies the variables to be observed; presents a draft plan for an integrated multi-disciplinary observing system for the Southern Ocean; and identifies the next steps required for implementation.

A final version of the SOOS plan is currently being formatted for printing. It will also be available online as a pdf.

News

• A SOOS website is currently being developed. For further details, please contact the SOOS Executive Officer, Louise Newman (email: Louise.Newman (at) utas.edu.au)
• A SOOS International Project Office (IPO) is being established in Australia, supported by the new Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania in Hobart (www.imas.utas.edu.au). The SOOS IPO will be co-located with Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) (www.imos.org.au). Louise Newman was appointed as Executive Officer from August 2011.
• The SCAR/SCOR Expert Group on Oceanography will act as a Scientific Steering Committee for SOOS.

World Ocean Day

Celebrate World Ocean Day with this video from NOAA's Ocean Today,  June 08, 2012.

James Cameron set for a Mariana Trench sequel - environment - 22 March 2012 - New Scientist

James Cameron set for a Mariana Trench sequel - environment - 22 March 2012 - New Scientist

Photos

Pictures from the recent cruise to Antarctica can be found at the following link:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/mpedulli/


Enjoy,

Marco Pedulli (Now back on dry land in New England)

Finally on the ice ...

The whole science team had a couple of hours of  "outdoor" time in McMurdo Sound, about 6 miles from McMurdo Station. It was a perfect time to play soccer, football or just run around the ice and take a ton of pictures.  Outside temperature was -4 degree C and very calm. A great way to relax after a long day!

Mount Erebus erupts

Mount Erebus - the second highest mountain in Antarctica - found on Ross Island in the outskirts of McMurdo Station (US) has just erupted but poses no threat to the inhabitants of the station.

Mount Erebus spewing lava (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

Italica

As we are winding down our science in the Ross Sea, Antarctica we made yet another stop for refueling from the Italian research vessel/tanker Italica about 13 miles from McMurdo Station on Ross Island. After spending a few days at the station the science team will be flown to Christchurch, NZ to catch a flight to the states. So far it has been a wonderful experience!

Sampling Station # 100

A couple of days ago we hit our 100th sampling station. To date we have occupied and sampled 109 stations and surveyed the Ross Sea using VPR (Video Plankton Recorder), SeaHorse (buoy), MVP (Moving Vessel Profiler. XBT (Expendable Bathythermographs), bongo (zooplankton) nets, etc.  It has been a great experience for everyone in the science group and we are all excited to further look at the data as we wind down our cruise. 

A station comprises of a CTD cast (always) and sometimes a trace-metal CTD cast followed by plankton (bongo) net tows. In between stations a VPR or MVP is towed if and when weather conditions are favorable (i.e. ice free and less turbulent ocean conditions).

Below is an example of sampling from a CTD/Rosette as soon as it is hauled back on deck to a room called the Baltic Room.

  

RVIB Lawrence Gould

Lawrence Gould (NBP's sister ship) in the background - far right - in Punta Arenas, Chile  (December 24, 2011)

Photo of the Day

Skua walking on water (Antarctica)

Sky dwellers

Photo of the Day

The SeaHorse (buoy) deployed near Ross Bank, Antarctica (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

SeaHorse

Deployment of the SeaHorse (buoy) near Ross Bank, Antarctica for the process study (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

The above picture shows the SeaHorse being deployed for the process study near Ross Bank in Antarctica a few days ago. The buoy was then recovered five days later. The buoy has a set of sensors attached to it which measure a whole suite of environmental variables (temperature, salinity, oxygen, fluorescence, etc.). Upon recovery the data are analyzed onboard of NBP. 

Charismatic Megafauna

Antarctica is rich in charismatic megafauna. One of them is pictured below. Except for killer whales these seals don't have any natural predators and roam in this ecosystem unhindered.

Crab-eater seal

Happy Tet!

Photo by Hai Doan

Photo of the Day

Adelie penguins avoiding the "orange monster" Nathaniel B. Palmer in Antarctica

XBT

The Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT) has been used by oceanographers for many years to obtain information on the temperature structure of the ocean to depths of up to 2000 meters. The use of XBT's to measure the ocean's subsurface has significantly increased over the past decade. For the PRISM cruise, so far, we have fired a dozen of them to identify the modified circumpolar deep water (MCDW). The following picture shows one deployment of the XBT.

Marco Pedulli firing an XBT near the Ross Bank, Antarctica

Tierra Del Fuego

No crossing (of the Drake Passage) is complete without rubbing the foot of the indian in downtown Punta Arenas, Chile 

PRISM Seminars

In between sampling and other lab/computer work, the science team has also been actively engaged in a number of PRISM science seminars. Thus far, the talks featured the various investigators onboard of NBP whose presentations included related past work from the region (i.e. The Ross Sea, Antarctica) and/or other places and more importantly addressed preliminary results from the current cruise. The latter means that everybody has to finish analyzing the data as soon as they come in. This is a great way for the planning process of the cruise whose motto is adaptive sampling, among other things.

The project (PRISM-RS) obviously has a solid plan of execution but is flexible enough to accommodate small changes on the fly depending on model output, satellite images (e.g. ice and chlorophyll) and observations. The latter is done at a finer scale using moving vessel profiler (MVP) and video plankton recorder (VPR), both of which have a number of sensors for chlorophyll, temperature, salinity, etc. onboard. MVP and VPR are towed from the ship in between sampling stations. To date, a total of 26 stations have been occupied and sampled using CTD rosette, trace metal tow fish, bongo nets (for plankton: phyto-and zooplankton) or a combination thereof.

Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI) discussing a plan of action at a PRISM seminar (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

Rescue Operation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Rescue operation in the Ross Sea, Antarctica (Photo: Marco Pedulli)

Photo of the Day

Adelie penguins on sea ice near the Ross Sea (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

Science one day, medical rescue the next

By Julian Race. The Ross Sea, Antarctica 
      January 14, 2012

What was supposed to be an ordinary science cruise to the Ross Sea turned into a rescue mission for the scientists and crew on the ice breaker research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer. On January 10, 2012, the Palmer was conducting research in the Ross Sea, collecting data about nutrients and other ocean processes. At approximately 3:30AM, a distress call was received from a nearby fishing vessel. The vessel was reported to be on fire, and the situation was very serious. Captain Sebastian Paoni, Marine Projects Coordinator Al Hickey, and Chief Scientist Dennis McGillicuddy made the decision to halt science operations and make best possible speed to go help.

All of the science equipment was winched back onboard the ship, the laboratories were cleaned and secured, and the Palmer turned north and headed full-speed towards the last known location of the vessel in distress. Meanwhile, the Captain and his crew were in contact with the New Zealand Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC), the dedicated rescue operations command post for that area of Antarctica. The RCC was gathering all reports about the incident, and coordinating the response. The Palmer was not the only ship in the area, but was the nearest, most properly equipped vessel to handle serious injuries. At the time, the RCC reported that the Palmer was about 16 hours away from the scene, and there were also two other fishing vessels 30 miles away. The Korean research vessel Araon was also in the area and was reported to be about 24 hours out.

The Jung Woo 2 burns in the background, as a rescue team from the Nathaniel B. Palmer transports patients from the waiting Jung Woo 3 (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

The reports from RCC were grim: the Korean fishing vessel Jeong Woo 2 was on fire, and of the 40 crew, 3 were missing and many were injured. The fire was out of control, and had already destroyed one of the vessel’s two lifeboats. Some of the crew had evacuated to the remaining lifeboat, but many were still stranded onboard the burning ship. The Palmer kept heading north, and all hands made ready for the upcoming rescue. The various scientists and support staff were assigned roles based on their skills and experience. Some would act as medics, others as rescue, recovery or general support. The ship was also preparing to take on up to 40 extra passengers. Every available space was made ready, as well as food and blankets for the victims.

About an hour away from the rescue, an all-hands meeting was called to discuss the rescue. The latest reports were better than expected, but still serious: the Jeong Woo 3, sister ship of the Jeong Woo 2, had arrived and evacuated all of the survivors from the burning wreck. Unfortunately, it was confirmed that three of the crew members had not survived the blaze, and an additional 7 were seriously injured and required immediate medical care. The Jeong Woo 3 was not able to properly treat the injured, and the Palmer, with a fully- equipped and staffed hospital, was asked to take on the injured and transport them to McMurdo station for evacuation to New Zealand.

The Palmer’s mission had shifted from rescue and recovery to medical transport. Arriving at 7:50PM on January 10, 2012, the Palmer came upon a shocking scene. The Jeong Woo 2 was still burning fiercely, with yellow flames leaping out of the pilothouse and superstructure, while thick black smoke billowed into the sky. The burning ship was wedged into some pack ice, and a short way off stood theJeong Woo 3. The Palmer’s crew adapted their plans and quickly made ready to take on the injured victims.

To transport the patients from the Korean ship to the Palmer, two zodiacs were put into the water. Each zodiac was manned with a helmsman, ship’s officer, medic, and deckhand. The zodiacs took turns ferrying the patients from the Korean ship back to the Palmer. The patients who could walk were helped up the side of the ship by way of the boarding ladder, while the serious cases were lifted, boat and all, up to the Palmer’s helicopter pad, where a team waited to carry them directly to the ship’s hospital.

After multiple trips back and forth, all of the injured fishermen were on the Palmer and ship’s EMTs began treating them. The ship then turned south and began making way towards McMurdo station.

The transit to McMurdo went quickly, with the Palmer using all of its sophisticated sensors and systems to plot the fastest, safest route through the ice to McMurdo. The ship would break its way into the ice about 16 miles from the station, and a medical team would fly to the ship in helicopters to offload the patients. 32 hours after leaving the Jeong Woo 3, the Palmer arrived at the McMurdo ice edge and began pushing her way into the ice. Being an icebreaker, the 2-3 foot thick sea ice was no problem. The Palmer stopped at a section of ice identified by an earlier reconnaissance flight as flat and stable enough to support the helicopters. 

Once the ship was secure, the crew carefully examined the ice around the ship, and marked off a safe landing zone using food coloring from the ship’s galley. The medical team from McMurdo arrived shortly after, and landed on the ice a few hundred feet away from the ship. The crew of the Palmer again went into action, performing the patient offload quickly and safely. The patients who could walk were gently escorted down the gangway, where a team was assembled on the ice, and rescue sleds that the medical team brought from McMurdo were used to transport the patients from the ship to the waiting helicopters. The seriously injured patients were carried from the hospital to the helo deck in a litter – a lightweight stretcher – and placed into a zodiac. One medic rode with the patient as the ship’s crane lifted the boat over the side and lowered it down to the ice. Again, the ice team dragged the patients to the helicopter, where they were loaded on and sent on to McMurdo.

Once all of the patients and medical personnel were safely on their way to McMurdo, the Palmer secured for sea and started back towards the Ross Sea to continue the science mission where they left of. The scientists, support staff, and crew of the Nathaniel B. Palmer worked as a team to respond to this serious incident, and played a key role in the response to this maritime tragedy.

Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica

Mount Erebus (English pronunciation: /ˈɛrɨbəs/) is the second highest volcano in Antarctica (after Mount Sidley), and the 6th highestultra mountain on an island. With a summit elevation of 3,794 metres (12,448 ft), it is located on Ross Island, which is also home to three inactive volcanoes, notably Mount Terror. Mount Erebus is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, which includes over 160 active volcanoes.

The volcano has been observed to be continuously active since 1972 and is the site of the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory run by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (source wikipedia)

Mount Erebus is the site we visited recently. We will be returning to the region upon completion of our cruise toward the beginning of February.

Mount Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

Back on Track!

Finally, we are back on track!  It looks like science has successfully resumed after the rescue operations, which, by the way, went very well. Needless to say they were very organized. Hats off to the crew, passengers and guests of the Nathaniel B. Palmer. There is no way these operations could have been dealt with more professionally. 

The ban on sharing photos and intimate details about the incident still holds to protect the privacy of the fishermen.  More on this soon!

Now, after a two-day hiatus we are back on track with our sampling protocol. The next stations to be occupied and sampled will be Station #7 followed by Station #8. The former is the site of the Ross ice shelf water while the latter features a high biomass (HB#1, with high chlorophyll concentrations).  MODIS satellite was used to describe HB#1 based on fluorescence values, while Temperature-Salinity plots will be used to characterize the distinct ice shelf water. The usual sampling protocol includes trace metal sampling followed by CTD casts from different depths and net towing. As mentioned in one of the earlier blogs the PRISM project hinges around 4 major hypotheses. One such hypothesis is that sea ice tends to melt during the austral summer (December-February) because of high solar incidence (24hrs of sunlight) and this water mass is a potential source for new iron for photosynthesis to take place  unhindered, resultantly allowing biomass to accumulate. 

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A side note:

Pictures were not uploaded properly in my earlier blogs. Apologies for the inconvenience this might have created.  I'll try to fix the problem as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience and please don't hesitate to drop me a line or two whenever you can at the following address:

"Marco Pedulli" <marco.pedulli.guest@nbp.usap.gov>

or twit your queries at @mpedulli 

Signing off for now.

Marco Pedulli

Science suspended for a day or two!

All is well aboard our research ship which participated in a rescue of fishermen from their burning vessel (Korean fishing vessel).  We have been asked until further notice not to communicate any details regarding this situation out of respect for the privacy of those we took aboard.  The media has many articles regarding this situation which can readily be found online.

The hydrography group

Work Station for the hydrography group (our office for the next two months or so) - Staphanie Hathcock (PRISM Outreach, ODU) and Pierre St. Laurent (hydro group, ODU) - Photo by Marco Pedulli

Eddies

En route to our next sampling station we spotted two eddies (a smaller, eddy # 1 and a little larger eddy #2) and stopped to sample them using CTD and trace metal tow fish. The 'M' in PRIMS - RS stands for mesoscale  processes and it looks like there is going to be a lot of those in the Ross Sea. One way to detect these oceanographic features is by looking at satellite pictures for chlorophyll patterns - usually circular or elliptical in shape, with high concentrations at the edges. The moving vessel profiler, which is towed from the ship, is sending in images and a computer software onboard of NBP (Nathaniel B. Palmer) is analyzing the pictures in near-real time  and decisions for where to exactly take samples from will be based on these observations.

On the hunt for CDW (Circumpolar Deep Water)

Now that we have finished sampling Station #3 we are on an incessant hunt for CDW. This mass of water has distinct characteristics and along-track sensors mounted on the MVP (moving vessel profiler) will be able to identify such properties of the CDW as salinity, temperature, etc. 

In the meanwhile, however the sea-ice is always a pleasure to look at and never ceases to surprise us. At times this white 'desert' is punctured by large animals as Emperor penguins and seals (pictured below). Other unidentified birds do, from time to time, hover over the ice in search for food.

Two is company (A pair of Emperor Penguins) – Photo by Stephanie Hathcock

Three is crowd (Seals) – Photo by Stephanie Hathcock

Photo of the Day

Iceberg near Antarctica (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

Our First Sampling Station

Today, January 7 at 22:32 UTC we reached our first station. This is the first of many stations lined up to be occupied and sampled thoroughly by the PRISM group. So far we have been gathering along- track data and and doing some occasional tows for chlorophyll, plankton, etc.  The next station (Station #2) will be within the sea-ice and the final and third one, before we set off close to the Ross Ice Shelf, will be onshore of the sea-ice.

Dan Powers manning the CTD/Rosette. Photo by Scott  McCormick

Antarctica Megafauna

Emperor Penguin (Photo courtesy of Scott McCormick)

Antarctic iceberg - slowly drifting away from the continent  (Photo by Scott McCormick)

Seal (Photo by Scott McCormick)

Photo of the Day

Seal perched on a floating sea ice (Photo: by Marco Pedulli)

Broader impacts of the PRISM –RS Project

The broader impacts of this project address three main categories of NSF’s Merit Review Broader Impacts Criterion:

1)  “Advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning”,

2)   “Enhance infrastructure for research and education”, and

3) “Broad dissemination to enhance scientific and technological understanding”.

In order to promote teaching and training, the approaches and results from these studies will be incorporated into a graduate course in physical/biological interactions co-taught by Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI) in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program. Eileen Hofmann (ODU) will incorporate results into courses she teaches at ODU on ecosystem modeling and ecosystem analysis. This collaborative effort will also provide new opportunities to the graduate and undergraduate students participating in the research, with direct support for Ph.D. students in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, VIMS, and ODU.

As part of the outreach program our cruise (PRISM-RS) will officially host a blog (http://www.steminaction.org/blog/) for anyone to follow during and possibly after the duration of the cruise (Dec 24, 2011 – February 07, 2012). The blog is prepared and maintained by Stephanie Hathcock (email: stephanie.hathcock.guest@nbp.usap.gov - only during the length of the cruise). If you have any questions or would like to read more about a particular aspect of the cruise, please direct your questions to Stephanie.

On the science front, after a day of hiatus we continued with our slightly queasy PRISM seminars. Today’s seminar featured Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI) who gave some preliminary results from the VPR (video Plankton Recorder) which his team deployed on January 1^st. The second part of the talk featured Joshua Eaton (WHOI) who talked about the engineering aspect of VPR.

Dennis McGillicuddy (WHOI) presenting some preliminary results from the VPR (Video Plankton Recorder). Photo by Marco Pedulli

Photo of the Day

Iceberg on the way to Antarctica (Photo by Marco Pedulli)

Marco Pedulli playing guitar near his work desk

Domain of the Antarctic

A letter from King Neptune

Today the NBP newbies received a somewhat "threatening" letter form King Neptune and it reads as follows:

“It has been duly noted by the Supreme Ruler of the Southern Depths that her Royale vessel, the NB Palmer, has entered the sacred domain of King Neptune filled with vile, treacherous and unclean neophytes who has not shown due respect to the King and his court. As such, they are all charged with various crimes against the august beings of the Royale Ocean. You are hereby commanded and ordered to appear at 1300 hours in the galley of the Palmer to answer to such charges. Be prepared for a thorough cleansing, as King Neptune and his court are rumoured to be deeply distressed by the unsanitary condition of the polywogs. And cleansed you shall be!! Be advised that leniency is shown to those that are contrite and who repent and quake in front of the Court! You should entertain the Court with amusing interludes designed to lighten the Court's sour demeanor, or face the full wrath of King Neptune, his wife and his Royale Baby (who, it might be added, is a Royale Pain). You should dress accordingly to fill the Court with lenient thoughts, and hope for the best. Be on time, and be prepared to be cleansed!

His Royale Scribe, Ino Itall “

On the science front, we successfully deployed a CTD/rosette cast to 300m depth and filled the 24bottles on the rosette shown in the picture below from 12 discrete depths (with repetitions) and sampled for oxygen, nutrients (silicate, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium and phosphate), salts, chlorophyll and proteins.  

Dan Powers (MT, RPSC) looks over the CTD rosette (Photo by Stephanie Hathcock)

Joshua Eaton (left, WHOI) and Robert Hagg (WHOI) checking on their VPR (Video Plankton Recorder) while Dan Powers (Marine Technician, RPSC) walks by. Photo by Marco Pedulli