RUCOOL Updates: October-December 2022

Field Campaign & Science Updates

And just like that, 2022 is done and we are starting a new year. There was quite a lot happening in the last quarter of 2023, but the big highlight for us was our 30th anniversary celebration in late October with Rick Spinrad, head of NOAA, RU President Jonothan Holloway, and former NOAA Research Lead, Craig McClean. Here’s to the next 30 years of scientific research!

State 

• New Masters of Operational Oceanography students worked together to ensure the successful deployment and recovery of glider RU23 in October. For 3 weeks, the students piloted the glider on their own mission: to transect along the Endurance Line and back, and to learn while doing so. With guidance from the RU COOL glider team, the students completed a successful mission in mapping the Mid-Atlantic cold pool.  
• The R/V Rutgers continues to maintain its status as an asset to Rutgers and the local oceanographic/hydrographic community.  In addition to supporting classes such as Oceanographic Methods and Data Analysis and Analytical Environmental Chemistry Lab, Captain Chip Haldeman has increased efforts toward expanding access throughout the University and beyond.  From connecting the Institute for Women’s Leadership and the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership to conducting trawl surveys with Monmouth University students, the R/V Rutgers has become integral to education.  Short historical tours were conducted along the Raritan River during the Raritan River Festival.  R/V Rutgers participated in multiple glider deployments and recoveries for both Rutgers and the University of Delaware, moored hydrophone array deployments/REMUS AUV surveys for BOEM projects, and performance testing for the first multi domain air/water drone, the Naviator.
• Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway took a class from RUCOOL Professor Grace Saba on how to prepare an underwater glider for a deployment off the NJ shore…. with a camera crew from CBS in tow during a photo shoot. 
• RUCOOL continues to support the renewable energy industry through work with NJBPU, NJDEP, Orsted and Atlantic Shores. Offshore wind developers have and will continue to visit our undergraduate and Masters of Operational Oceanography classes as we support workforce development. In our work with NJDEP and NJBPU, we are focused on improving the sea surface temperature (SST) data that is assimilated into atmospheric weather forecast models, such as RU-WRF, as SSTs have significant impacts on the available offshore wind resource.
• The RUCOOL Education Team, led by Janice McDonnell, won the annual SEBS Team Excellence Award for their work on the Explorers of the Deep 4-H STEM Challenge. It was a great day to celebrate RUCOOL education!
• RUCOOL continues to expand our afterschool library programs.  We have reached approximately 18 libraries with marine science themed programs from Cape May to Sussex Counties.  Graduate and undergraduate students participated in teaching the programs with our education and outreach team.  The undergrads are participating as interns from the Science Communication minor here at SEBS under the direction of Dr. Mary Nucci and students mentored by Janice McDonnell.      

National

• RUCOOL CELEBRATES 30 YEARS OF OCEAN RESEARCH EXCELLENCE! National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Rick Spinrad; Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway; Distinguished Professor Scott Glenn, co-director of Rutgers Center for Ocean Observing Leadership; and Craig McLean (RC ’79), former assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at NOAA, toured the ocean glider lab during a celebration marking RUCOOL’s excellence in ocean research and education over the last 30 years.
• RUCOOL’s Julia Engdahl won two Director’s Team Awards from NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). These awards were for work on automating quality control on NOAA’s Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Data System (PORTS) current meter data and work on the 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report. Congrats Julia!
• Lauren Cook won the Mid Atlantic Chapter of the American Fisheries Societie’s best student Presentation at their November 2022 Annual Meeting.
• RUCOOL’s Travis Miles was interviewed by @foxweather regarding our use of gliders to help the National Weather Service forecast hurricane intensity. https://www.foxweather.com/watch/play-5fe30e74e0003ea
• Congrats to Cassidy Gonzalez-Morabito, an RUCOOL Alumna now at L3 Harris, for receiving the Ocean News & Technology Young Professional Award: Presented to an Marine Technology Society member, 35 years of age or younger, who has demonstrated leadership in the Society and works in a professional capacity in management, engineering, or research and development in a marine technology field.
• Rutgers Cooperative Extension teamed up with Cooperative Extension at Cornell University to bring educators from across two states to the New York Aquarium for an immersive full-day professional development experience. They were introduced to the 4-H Stem Challenge Explorers of the Deep through a hands-on activity demonstration of the Ocean Explorers Augmented Reality board game that includes a mini working glider. 
• The United Nations endorsed the above Ocean Decade activity submission for the 2022 STEM Challenge. The learning goals and efforts surrounding the STEM challenge are in accordance with the United Nations proclamation of a Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to; “support efforts to reverse the cycle of decline in ocean health and gather ocean stakeholders worldwide behind a common framework that will ensure ocean science can fully support countries in creating improved conditions for sustainable development of the Ocean.”
• The RUCOOL education team is  supporting 18 schools from across the country in our Virtual teleconferences with scientists from Antarctica. We have schools from Utqiaġvik, Alaska to Florida and everywhere in between! Over the course of the next month we will reach approximately 1,000 middle school age youth. 

International

• At the International Oceans Meeting sponsored by the Marine Technology Society and the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, Rutgers had 3 of the 26 finalists in the student poster competition, with Jackie Veatch winning the competition. Her poster, paper, and presentation was selected as the winner among an impressive set of scientific and engineering posters!!
• The Antarctic Science Season Begins! RUCOOL has multiple projects performing research, with the cornerstone being the NSF Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) project at Palmer Station. The Palmer LTER studies a polar marine biome with research focused on the Antarctic pelagic marine ecosystem, including sea ice habitats, regional oceanography and terrestrial nesting sites of seabird predators. Our first science team led by Nicole Waite, left to focus on underwater glider deployments off Palmer on December 21. Another NSF funded project team led by Josh Kohut, is headed down in February to recover our CODAR HF-Radar station, deployed 3 years ago. That site is under several feet of snow and ice. Should be a fun recovery!
• Sweden’s Consul General Camilla Mellander and her team visited RUCOOL in December for a glider lab and coolroom tour as well as some in depth discussions on marine science and climate. 

Newly Funded Research 

• University of Delaware: Accelerate Improvements in Hurricane Intensity Forecasting Through Underwater Glider Field Campaigns: Mid Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS) (Travis Miles, $343,183, 14 months)NASA: Rapid Response: Improving Our Understanding in Situ Carbon Dynamics to Ocean Color in the Southern Ocean by Adding Bio-Optical Instrumentation to the SOCCUM Float-Based Observing System (Oscar Schofield, $250,000, 1 year).
• Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind: Atlantic Shores Cup Anemometer Installation at Tuckerton Field Station (Michael Crowley, $40,141, 1 year).
• Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System: The Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System: A responsive stakeholder-driven observing system addressing regional and national needs in the US Caribbean (Hugh Roarty, $28,188, 1 year).
• University of Delaware: HF-Radar Hardware Improvements (Hugh Roarty, $80,220, 1 year).
• JASCO: South Fork Wind cod spawning monitoring plan (Grace Saba, $90,082, 1 year).

Papers Published: (**Current or Former Graduate Student or Postdoctoral Researchers)

• Pallin, L. J., Kellar, N. M., Botero-Acosta, N., Baker, C. S., Conroy, J. A., Costa, D. P., Johnson, C. M., Johnston, D. W., Nichols, R. C., Nowacek, D. P., Read, A. J., Savenko, O., Schofield, O., Steinberg, D. K., Friedlaender, A. S. 2022. A surplus no more: decreased krill availability impacts Antarctic baleen whale reproductive rates. Global Change Biology DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16559
• Seidel, D. K., Morin, X., Staffen, M., Ludescher, R. D., Simon, J. E., Schofield, O. 2023. Building a Collaborative, University Based Science-in-Action Video Storytelling Model that Translates Science for Public Engagement and Increases Scientists’ Relatability. Frontiers in Communication DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2022.1049648
• Guzik, M., Saba, G.K., Wright-Fairbanks, E.K. 2022. Observing winter carbonate chemistry dynamics throughout the Mid-Atlantic Bight shelf using novel glider technology. Aresty Rutgers Undergraduate Research Journal 1(4): DOI: 10.14713/arestyrurj.v1i4.203
• Wright-Fairbanks, E.K., Saba, G.K. 2022. Quantification of the Dominant Drivers of Acidification in the Coastal Mid-Atlantic Bight. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 127(11): DOI: 10.1029/2022JC018833.