RUCOOL Updates: August-September 2021

Students have started returning to campus as has the RUCOOL team, with our faculty teaching seven courses this semester. You will note from several of the highlights below, that it’s great to be back on campus.

State 

• Rutgers is working with the NOAA Weather Forecasting Office (WFO) Philadelphia to develop wave measurements from High Frequency radar (HF-Radar).  The HF-Radars traditionally provide surface current measurements that are utilized by NOAA and US Coast Guard.  Another measurement that is under development is wave height, period and direction.  Recently WFO Philadelphia utilized HF-Radar data to analyze the swell from Hurricane Larry and forecaster Nicholas Carr mentioned it in his rip current forecast discussion.
• RUCOOL’s Joe Brodie and Josh Kohut, together with Doug Zemeckis of NJAES, issued the final report on the 2021 Partners in Science Workshop: Identifying Ecological Metrics and Sampling Strategies for Baseline Monitoring During Offshore Wind Development, sponsored by NJBPU. The full report is available at: https://go.rutgers.edu/PS-Report-2021.
• Grace Saba is collaborating with NJDEP to organize a workshop focused on developing an ocean acidification monitoring network for the state of NJ. The virtual workshop is scheduled to be held in November.
• R/V Rutgers Captain Chip Haldeman was able to save a flotilla of Rutgers Crew boats and docks from destruction during the Hurricane Ida Flooding. The full story of Chip’s heroics is here.
• Zdenka Willis, president of the Marine Technology Society (MTS), visited RUCOOL in August to kick off the early semester for our new cohort of Masters of Operational Oceanography graduate students. Zdenka shared her history, career advice and benefits of joining the MTS Society with our students. In the following weeks, the students completed their glider and HF-Radar School as preparation for the fall semester.
• On August 5, Rutgers President Holloway and School of Engineering Dean Farris hosted Congressman Frank Pallone and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. They were introduced to glider RU33 while discussing RUCOOL’s history of state-of-the-art research with NOAA and others.
• Oscar Schofield chaired the committee working on the reorganization of Rutgers Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Science Institute.

National

• The RIOS summer students completed their work in person at DMCS and Haskin Labs this August. The students completed authentic research experiences that ranged from undersea volcanoes, shellfish aquaculture, to offshore wind.  Our students spanned topics from our ancient ocean to present day and from the high Arctic to the coastal seas around Antarctica.  We thank the university support and all involved who helped ensure that these students could work in a safe and productive environment all summer.
• Rutgers has been providing a leadership role on the NOAA led Hurricane Glider weekly meetings during this 2021 hurricane season. The team is charged with comparing in situ data with NOAA, Navy and university ocean models to evaluate which work best in different situations, with the ultimate goal being to improve hurricane intensity forecasts.
• The RUCOOL Education Team posted new Data Labs widgets (ecosystems, profiles, update pH and pCO2).
• The Education Team presented Icy Adventure to the 4H STEM ambassadors and 4H from Home The team also presented two sessions on robotics (gliders and drones) to the 4H STEM ambassadors group.

International

• Scott Glenn is co-chair of NOAA’s Science Advisory Board Environmental Information Services Working Group (EISWG). This group is focused on a congressionally authorized committee whose charge is to track NOAA progress on the Weather Research and Forecast Innovation Act.
• Scott Glenn is co-chair  of the Priorities for Weather Research (PWR) study. This group of 149 subject matter experts is charged with creating a decadal report for future investments in NOAA to support better forecasts authorized by the 2021 Omnibus Appropriations Act.
• RUCOOL completed the 2021 International Challenger Glider mission in the Caribbean with the deployment of RU29 from St. Thomas US Virgin Islands. The glider sampled the Windward Islands to collect critical ocean data in hurricane prone regions, while simultaneously building international partnerships. This was the first time an ADCP (currents) and Microrider (turbulence) were deployed on a glider in this region. The datasets will be a focus of study this winter.
• Oscar Schofield Chaired a National Academy Sciences Study “Mid-Course Assessment of NSF progress on 2015 Strategic Vision for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research”.  The public version of the report is being released in October.
• Rutgers begins its next Antarctic field expedition in October. Rutgers is anchoring the Palmer LTER cruise, which is one of the only two ship expeditions by the United States this pandemic year for the Southern Ocean.

Student Awards

• RUCOOL Grad Student Schuyler Nardelli won the MTS Student Poster competition at this year’s Oceans 2021 meeting in San Diego.
• Grad Student Liza Wright-Fairbanks won the Walter Munk Scholar award at OCEANS 2021 in San Diego. Established in 2019, the Award honors Walter Munk’s legacy of daring exploration and discovery through ocean scientific and technology research, ocean education or ocean conservation; open to those from any country or territory.
• In addition to Schuyler and Liza, the NJ Student Section won the MTS award for outstanding Student Section at the Oceans 2021 San Diego meeting. This section includes student members from Rutgers, Stockton University, Stevens Inst. of Technology and Monmouth University.
• Rachel Davitt (co-mentored by Grace Saba and Kim Thamatrakoln), along with two other students, won Best Student Poster Presentation for the Rutgers Research Internships in Ocean Science (RIOS), NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. Becca xx (mentored by Travis Miles) received runner-up.

Newly Funded Research 

• NASA, “Southern ocean carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling (SOCCOM) Rapid Response”, O. Schofield ($472,00 over 2 years)
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory, “Surface Water and Ocean Topography”, O. Schofield ($502,584 over 2 years)
• NSF, “GOALI: Generation v. Degradation: Striking the optimal balance for wind farm profitability via digitization, predictive and prescriptive analytics,” A. Ezzat (SOE), J. Brodie, M. Mousa (Cognite), ($225,000 over 3 years)
• NSF, “SWIFT: Enabling Spectrum Coexistence of 5G mmWave and Passive Weather Sensing,” N. Mandayam (SOE), C.T. Wu (SOE), R.Q. Wang (SOE), J. Brodie, ($750,000 over 3 years)

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

• Nazzaro, L., Slesinger, E., Kohut, J., Saba, G.K., Saba, V.S. 2021. Sensitivity of marine fish thermal habitat models to fishery data sources. Ecology and Evolution 11(19): 13001-13013, http://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7817.
• Brodie, J., Kohut, J., Zemeckis, D. 2021. Partners in Science Workshop: Identifying Ecological Metrics and Sampling Strategies for Baseline Monitoring During Offshore Wind Development.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences 

RUCOOL continues to lead/attend numerous virtual meetings. Here are some meetings which our team attended and/or presented: MTS Oceans 2021 San Diego, MARACOOS Annual meeting, Lewes Yacht Club MARACOOS OceansMap Meeting, RIOS 2021, Underwater Glider User Group (UG2) Meeting, LTER Annual Meeting, Global Ocean Biogeochemistry Array (GO-BGC) Annual Meeting, NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP) Vulnerability Assessment Workshop, Montclair State University Clean and Sustainable Energy Summit 2021.

RUCOOL Updates: June-July 2021

As we start returning to the office, our team is now enjoying face to face discussions rather than through Zoom, Webex, Meets and Teams. Summer is always a busy time around here with coastal ocean research and summer RIOS students, and this summer is no different.

State

• Josh Kohut joined a three person panel including Governor Florio for the NJ Spotlight News program focused on plans for offshore wind turbine installations along the NJ coast. The program was titled “Offshore Wind in New Jersey: Meeting the State’s Clean Energy and Economic Goals”.
• Grace Saba joined co-PIs Robert Chant and Nicole Fahrenfeld and three summer undergraduate interns on a research cruise investigating microplastics and their consumption by zooplankton in the Delaware Bay.
• Our second cohort of Operational Oceanography Masters students, Ted Thompson and Ailey Sheehan, both successfully defended their theses on back to back days in July. Congrats Ted and Ailey! There is no time to rest for our faculty and the 3rd cohort will arrive in early August for HF-RADAR, glider and programming school.
• Through the ECO-PAM project, RUCOOL is partnering with Ørsted to monitor the local ecology and oceanography within and around the Ocean Wind lease area. The first deployment year was completed in July, with 4 successful glider deployments off of NJ that tracked local fish and marine mammals from the summer through the winter.
• RUCOOL is working with multiple members of DMCS (T. Grothues, J. Morson, D. Munroe, D. Zemeckis, G. Saba, J. Kohut and A. Vastano) on the Ørsted Fisheries project preparation. The team is gearing up quickly for numerous fish surveys that will begin in the early fall.
• RUCOOL was involved with 8 glider deployments in June and July. Geographically the gliders swam in waters that ranged from the Gulf of Maine, to the coast of NJ, to the Caribbean. Funding for our glider research came from NOAA and the Vetelsen Foundation. RU29 was attacked by a shark just west of Anguilla, but was recovered and will be redeployed in late August or early September.

National

• This summer RUCOOL was happy to welcome 12 undergraduate students to SEBS for an in-person summer internship. Students based on the main campus in New Brunswick and our Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory completed authentic research experiences that ranged from undersea volcanoes, shellfish aquaculture, to offshore wind.  Our students spanned topics from our ancient ocean to present day and from the high Arctic to the coastal seas around Antarctica.  We thank the university support and all involved who helped ensure that these students could work in a safe and productive environment all summer.
• Multiple members of the RUCOOL team attended and presented at the MARACOOS HF-Radar Installation ceremony in Lewes, DE. Attendees included US Senator Tom Carper, Director of the National Weather Service, Louis Uccellini, and Carl Gouldman, head of US IOOS.
• RUCOOL tracked the ocean’s response to the passage of Tropical Storm Elsa as it moved through the mid-Atlantic. The storm was modelled in real time by the Rutgers Weather Research and Forecasting model (RUWRF).  For a complete article and animations of the storm, click here.
• The RUCOOL education team was very busy this summer. Janice McDonnell taught our Icy Adventure program in Paterson Science and Technology Charter School to summer school students. Janice also completed several workshops for the ARIS Broader Impacts Professional Community in June. Carrie Ferraro and Janice taught a Climate Change Professional Development course for 28 teachers. Janice also served as a “spark” panelist and presenter for the OOI Pioneer Array workshop. Sage Lichtenwaner and Janice released the OOI Lab Manual 2.0. While the manual is designed to complement introductory oceanography courses, it is modular by design, so specific labs can be used in related courses as well. The manual will be pilot tested by 22 new faculty this fall.

International

• In partnership with Texas A&M and several other partners from the US and Mexico, Rutgers submitted the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine proposal for Understanding the Gulf Ocean System. Should we be awarded, Rutgers’ part in this $19 million proposal is to act as the Data Management team and deploy several gliders in the Gulf of Mexico over the next 5 years with a major goal of improving tropical cyclone forecasts.
• Scott Glenn is co-chair of NOAA’s Science Advisory Board Environmental Information Services Working Group (133 members). In July they completed the 3 month information gathering phase for the Weather Research Decadal Report that will be sent to the US Congress. In August they will move into the integration phase.
• RUCOOL initiated the 2021 International Challenger Glider mission in the Caribbean with the deployment of RU29 from St. Thomas US Virgin Islands. The glider will sample the Windward Islands to collect critical ocean data in hurricane prone regions, while simultaneously building international partnerships.
• Oscar Schofield was asked to serve on the United Kingdom BIOPOLE science advisory committee. The BIOPOLE is a EU program focused on determining how polar ecosystems regulate the balance of carbon and nutrients in the world’s oceans and through it their effect on global productivity and carbon storage.
• Oscar Schofield was asked to serve on the International Strategic Visioning committee for the Charney School of Marine Science at the University of Haifa (Israel).
• Travis Miles was an invited speaker by The Oceanography Society for their Exploring Ocean Instrumentation webinar series. He presented a talk on “Sediment Resuspension Observations from a Glider Integrated Sequoia Scientific LISST Particle Analyser.”

Student Awards

• RUCOOL students Schuyler Nardelli and Elizabeth (Liza) Wright-Fairbanks join two other EOAS graduate students in being selected as finalists to receive the 2022 John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship. These four students make the most awardees of any institution of higher education in the United States. Julia Engdahl, recent RUCOOL Masters in Oceanography graduate, won the NOAA Professional Excellence Award during her first year as a contractor for NOAA CO-OPS (Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services).
• Emily Slesinger (Saba PhD student) received the John E. Skinner Memorial Award from the American Fisheries Society
• Graduate Student Sam Coakley received the Bill Lapenta NOAA internship at NOAA’s Global Ocean Modeling and Observing Program.

Newly Funded Research

• Office of Naval Research, “Predictions of Acoustics with Smart Experimental Networks of Gliders”, Travis Miles ($396,241 over 3 years).
• NJ Board of Public Utilities, “BPU Wind Resource Evaluation Modification”, Scott Glenn, Travis Miles, Joe Brodie, Josh Kohut ($576,346 for 15 months).
• NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, “Ocean Acidification Synthesis Products for Northeast Fisheries Science Center State of the Ecosystem Reports”, Grace Saba ($16,326). (Additional amount pending: $62,673).
• NJDEP, “Development of a Statewide Acidification Monitoring Network in New Jersey”, Grace Saba, ($48,845).

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

• Miles, T., Slade, W., Glenn, S. August 2021. Sediment Resuspension and Transport from a Glider-Integrated Laser in Situ Scattering and Transmissometry (LISST) Particle Analyzer. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. Volume 38. DOI: 10.1175/JTECH-D-20-0207.1
• Kim, H. H., Luo, Y., Ducklow, H. W., Schofield, O., Steinberg, D. K., Doney, S. C. 2021. WAP-1D-VAR v1.0: Development and Evaluation of a One-Dimensional Variational Data Assimilation Model for the Marine Ecosystem Along the West Antarctic Peninsula. Geoscientific Model Development. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-2020-375.
• **Lin, Y., Moreno, C., Marchetti, A., Ducklow, H., Schofield, O., Chaffron, S., Delage, E., Eveillard, D., Cassar, N. Decrease in plankton diversity and biological carbon fluxes with a reduction in sea ice extent at western Antarctic Peninsula. Nature Communications. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25235-w.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

RUCOOL continues to lead/attend numerous virtual meetings. Here are some meetings which our team attended and/or presented: NOAA Integrated Ocean Observing System DMAC Meeting, OOI Pioneer Array Innovations Lab, MARACOOS Board Meeting, NOAA Science Advisory Board Meeting, NJ Spotlight News Offshore Wind Energy in NJ Broadcast, MARACOOS HF-Radar Installation Ceremony in Lewes DE, The Oceanography Society Webinar Series Exploring Ocean Instrumentation.

RUCOOL Updates: April-May 20201

Field Campaign & Science Updates

The spring semester for RUCOOL was a success in the classroom as well as in the proposal, funding and research areas. Thanks to several successful proposals, it looks to be a very busy summer and fall along the NJ shore!

State

• The second cohort of the Operational Oceanography Masters Degree finished their final classes and are interviewing for jobs!
• Operational Masters student Theodore Thompson submitted a code notebook to the NSF Earthcube Student Funding and Educational Opportunity. Ted is competing with students around the country in a call to “create an integrated environment for the sharing of geoscience data and knowledge in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner.” Ted utilized his training in the program to create an interactive notebook deploying ocean datasets to inform the recreational bone fishing industry in his native country the Bahamas.
• RUCOOL contributed an ‘op-ed’ describing the Operational Oceanography Masters program to a book published in May titled “Preparing a Workforce for the New Blue Economy: People, Products and Policies” (editors Richard Spinrad, NOAA Administrator, and Liesl Hotaling, Marine Technology Society VP of Communications).
• Mike Crowley and Kelly Knee (RPS Group) taught members of the Raritan Yacht Club to use the MARACOOS ocean data visualization website https;//oceansmap.maracoos.org. The Yacht Club learned that their Zoom account maxed out at 200 people! It was an overwhelmingly positive event that we will follow up on in the fall.
• Grace Saba co-presented an invited webinar (with Megan Rutkowski at NJDEP) entitled “Ocean Acidification Action Planning in the State of New Jersey” sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN).
• George H. Cook Honors students Mollie Passacantando and Marissa Guzik successfully completed and presented their Honors theses.
• RUCOOL began hosting a monthly research update on offshore wind activities for the NJ Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

National

• Our bi-monthly updates do not usually include updates on proposals, but these past two months were unlike any we can remember over the last few years. They were dominated by numerous proposal submissions, including ones to the Department of Energy (3), Orsted (2), NOAA (2), NJDEP (2), NSF (2) and the Simmons Foundation.
• Josh Kohut and Grace Saba were planning team members for the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Forum session Innovative Technologies and Approaches for Understanding Ocean Changes, for which Josh was the moderator.
• Grace Saba and Travis Miles were active members of the Rutgers University URGE (Unlearning Racism in the Geosciences) pod and served as deliverable leaders focused on Rutgers University hiring & graduate admissions policies. (Shouldn’t this be state as URGE is a University program)
• Grace Saba and PhD student Emily Slesinger contributed to and are co-authors on the recently released NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s 2021 State of the Ecosystem reports for the Mid-Atlantic (https://apps-nefsc.fisheries.noaa.gov/rcb/publications/SOE-MAFMC-2021-508-Final.pdf) and New England (https://apps-nefsc.fisheries.noaa.gov/rcb/publications/SOE-NEFMC-2021-508-Final.pdf).
• The RUCOOL education team posted the final set of Polar Literacy and Polar Scientist Spotlight videos. You can find them all at https://polar-ice.org/polar-literacy-initiative/. Additionally, in April they posted a series of essays on using Python from our Data Lab Fellows https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/blog/
• Janice McDonnell provided hands-on training on the use of a suite of tools for Broader Impacts Training to professionals around the country, including most recently at the joint Broader Impacts Summit 2021, hosted by the NSF funded ARIS center and Broader Impacts Canada.
• Grace Saba co-presented an invited talk (with Robert Chant, Nicole Fahrenfeld, and Georgia Arbuckle-Keil) entitled “Delaware Bay river plumes as a control on microplastic entry into the food chain” at the NOAA Marine Debris Program PI meeting. Grace also presented an invited talk entitled “Supplementing regional ocean acidification monitoring with glider-based measurements” at the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Forum: Innovative Technologies and Approaches for Understanding Ocean Changes.

International

• Oscar Schofield co-Chaired an international virtual meeting sponsored by the G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative (FSOI), which brought together stakeholders spanning from Fisheries Management, Ocean Carbon Budget Verification, and Environmental Forecasting and Modeling to assess what positive contributions BGC (Bio Geochemical Argo Floats) might provide. The goal was to develop a global array of 1000 BGC profiling floats, each carrying 6 new biogeochemical sensors.  The meeting was held in multiple time zones throughout the month of May and had 1008 attendees spanning over 15 countries.  The meeting entrained science ministers from across Europe (England, Germany, France, Italy) and from the United States the National Science Foundation, NASA, NOAA and the White House.
• The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) effort to deploy HF Radars in Yucatan and Cuba is spinning back up as COVID restrictions relax and some members of the team from Texas A&M University are allowed to travel to at least to Mexico.
• Scott Glenn presented the NASEM OceanShot on Transformative Ocean Observing for Hurricane Forecasting, Readiness and Response in the Caribbean Tropical Storm Corridor (Caribe Corredores) to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO’s Regional Secretariat for the IOCARIBE. The project was encouraged by member states to proceed as an international co-development pilot.

Student Awards

• Emily Slesinger (Saba PhD student) received the Rutgers University and Louis Bevier Fellowship Award.
• Jessica Valenti (Saba post-doc) received the Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies Excellence in Leadership and Teaching Award.
• Lauren Cook (Saba PhD student) was awarded the 2021 Con Edison Waterfront Scholar to attend the Waterfront Alliance’s annual Waterfront Conference.

Newly Funded Research

• NSF Long Term Ecological Research (LTER), “LTER: Ecological Response and Resilience to “Press-Pulse” Disturbances and a Recent Decadal Reversal in Sea Ice Trends Along the West Antarctic Peninsula” Oscar Schofield ($2,374,386 over 2 years).
• NASA Rapid Response Program. 2021-2022. “Improving our understanding in situ carbon dynamics to ocean color in the Southern Ocean by adding bio-optical instrumentation to the SOCCOM Float-based Observing System” Schofield, Riser, Tally ($471,920)

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

• Le Hénaff, M., Domingues, R., Halliwell, G., Zhang, J. A., Kim, H.-S., Aristizabal, M., Miles, T., Glenn, S., Goni, G.. (2021). The role of the Gulf of Mexico ocean conditions in the intensification of Hurricane Michael (2018). Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 126, e2020JC016969
• Martin, A.H., Pearson, H., Saba, G.K., Olsen, E.M. 2021. Integral functions of marine vertebrates in the ocean carbon cycle and climate change mitigation. One Earth 4(5): 680-693.
• Meredith, M. P., Stammerjohn, S. E., Ducklow, H. W., Leng, M. J., Arrrowsmith, C., Brearley, A. J., Venabkes, H. J, Barnham, M., Melchiorr, Wessem, J., Schofield, O., Waite, N. Local- and large-scale drivers of variability in the coastal freshwater budget of the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Journal of Geophysical Research. DOI: 10.1029/2021JC017172
• Murphy, S. C., L. J. Nazzaro, J. Simkins, M. J. Oliver, Kohut, M. Crowley, and T. N. Miles (2021), Remote Sensing of Environment Persistent upwelling in the Mid-Atlantic Bight detected using gap-filled , high-resolution satellite SST, Remote Sens. Environ., 262, 112487, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2021.112487
• Saba GK, Bockus, AB., Shaw, CT., Seibel, BA. 2021. Combined effects of ocean acidification and elevated temperature on feeding, growth, and physiological processes of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba). Marine Ecology Progress Series 665: 1-18, https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13715. Selected as a Feature Article.
• **Schultz, C., Doney, S. C., Hauck, J., Kavanaugh, M. T. Schofield, O. 2021. Modeling phytoplankton blooms and inorganic carbon responses to sea-ice variability in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Journal of Geophysical Research. Geosciences. DOI: 10.1002/essoar.10505538.1
• Beaird, N., Glenn, S., Miles, T., Saba, G., Kohut, J., & Schofield, O. (2021). Case study: RUCOOL Operational Oceanography Masters—workforce development case study. Preparing a Workforce for the New Blue Economy. Elsevier, 2021.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

RUCOOL continues to lead/attend numerous virtual meetings. Here are some meetings which our team attended and/or presented: National Ocean Science Board meeting (virtual tour of RUCOOL), Mid-Atlantic Committee on the Ocean (MACO) Ocean Forum, OceanGliders Best Practices Workshop (hosted and presented), Mid Atlantic Telemetry Observation System Annual Meeting, New York Environmental Technical Working Group State of the Science Workshop Culmination Webinar, Raritan Yacht Club MARACOOS Meeting, G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative (FSOI), Priorities for Weather Research (PWR) Report to Congress.

RUCOOL Updates: February – March 2021

The spring semester is well underway as the team works on numerous research proposals for the coming year with April deadlines. We are all looking forward to the spring warming and the fully loaded summer field season ahead.

State

• In support of the SEBS Virtual Learning Experience, Josh Kohut discussed offshore wind energy development in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, the important environmental considerations, how it will affect our ocean and planet in the short and long terms, and how Rutgers is involved in delivering high tech ocean solutions to the development of this state-of-the-art industry to the U.S.
• Mike Crowley, as Technical Director of RUCOOL and the Mid Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS), represented MARACOOS and Rutgers on capitol hill visits with the offices of Senator Cory Booker, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Rep. Frank Pallone and Rep. Chris Smith. Discussions focused on RUCOOL contributions to NWS tropical storm forecasting, NOAA fisheries bycatch mitigation, NJ offshore wind development and mitigating interference with right whale migrations during turbine installations, NJDEP water quality monitoring and K-16 education.
• The RUCOOL ECO-PAM glider project with Orsted’s Ocean Wind project completed its fourth scheduled deployment off of New Jersey. Detections of the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale coincided with an oceanic front towards the edge of the continental shelf detected via satellite sea surface temperature and RUCOOL high frequency radar surface currents, an interesting and first-time finding. Glider deployments will resume this fall.
• Late winter is usually a quiet time for the mid-Atlantic glider deployments, but this February and March we supported 5 deployments of gliders in the NY Bight that are doing water quality research for NJDEP, ocean acidification monitoring for NOAA, and tracking right whale migrations off of Atlantic City for Orsted. It promises to be a busy glider year ahead.
• Operational Oceanography students have finally been able to participate in covid-safe field work through a return to research, gaining valuable hands-on experience in the field! Students are in the final stages of submitting their project abstracts to the student poster competition at the Marine Technology Society OCEANS conference, learning to effectively communicate their science.
• Grace Saba presented an invited talk entitled “Ocean and Coastal Acidification in the Mid-Atlantic: The What, the Why, and the Risks” for the Hooked on Ocean Acidification Mini-Series sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) and MARACOOS.
• RU COOL faculty continue teaching seven courses including Oceanography Seminar, Topics in Marine Science, Operational Ocean Modeling, Polar Systems, Integrated Ocean Observations 2, Science Pseudoscience and Society, and Field Laboratory Methods 2.
• During this semester, RUCOOL faculty are working with 8 interns including George H. Cook Honors students Noah Motz, Christina Schultz, Mollie Passacantando and Marissa Guzik, SEBS Honors students Miah Manning and Emma Huntzinger, and EBE students Kiernan Bates and Aviva Lerman.

National

• Brad Colman, a meteorologist with the Climate Corporation, and Scott Glenn, an oceanographer from Rutgers University, have been selected by the NOAA Science Advisory Board to co-lead the Priorities for Weather Research (PWR) Report to Congress (RtC) due in December of 2021. They will assemble and lead a group from across the Weather Enterprise that will recommend priorities for the next decade of Congressional investments in observations & data assimilation, forecasting, and information delivery to improve weather forecasts and warnings through an Earth Systems, Social, and Behavioral Sciences approach.
• The education and outreach team was involved with numerous activities including serving as a judge in the Youth Institute, acting as a rules judge in the 2021 Shore Bowl, teaching a Broader Impacts class on effective partnerships for the ARIS Center (Advancing Research Impacts in Society), and serving as panelists for the OOI re-siting of the Pioneer Array meeting, Additionally, the education team had 3 New Brunswick HS students selected to participate in the NJSTEM Month Communities Challenge -from our 4-H STEM Ambassador program. Alesha Vega on our team mentored these youth to present a project to 10 community judges including State Assemblymen. See https://www.southjerseysip.org/communitieschallenge.
• The education team posted the 3 more articles from our 2020 OOI Data Labs fellows, which showcase the lessons they developed using the OOI Data Explorations, and the lessons they’ve learned using these resources, which many found especially helpful for adapting to the pandemic. The OOI Data Labs project has truly become a national resource for ocean science educators as we have passed 150 members: Data Labs Community Map.
• The education team began posting more new videos for the Polar Literacy Principles, specifically 1-location, 4-food & 6-humans.
• PhD student Elizabeth Wright-Fairbanks presented a talk entitled “Glider-based observations reveal seasonal pH and aragonite saturation state variability in coastal U.S. Mid-Atlantic shellfishery management zones” at the National Shellfisheries Association annual meeting.

International

• Grace Saba presented an invited talk entitled “Toward a better understanding of fish-based contribution to ocean carbon flux” for the Joint Exploration of the Twilight Zone Ocean Network monthly meeting.
• Grace Saba was a co-presenter with Emma Cavan and Simeon Hill of an invited talk entitled “Fish, fisheries, and carbon sequestration” at the international symposium Delivering on climate & biodiversity targets through better fisheries management.

Newly Funded Research

• University of Delaware, “Transport of Freshwater on Antarctic Shelves,” Josh Kohut ($22,923).
• Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CARICOOS, NOAA), “HF-Radar Site Support,” Hugh Roarty, ($60,000)
• NASA Rapid Response Program. 2021-2022. “Improving our understanding in situ carbon dynamics to ocean color in the Southern Ocean by adding bio-optical instrumentation to the SOCCOM Float-based Observing System” Oscar Schofield ($471,920)

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

• Saba, G.K., Burd, A.B., Dunne, J.P., Hernández-León, S., Martin, A.H., Rose, K.A., Salisbury, J., Steinberg, D.K., Trueman, C.N., Wilson, R.W., Wilson, S.E. 2021. Toward a better understanding of fish-based contribution to ocean carbon flux. Limnology and Oceanography: doi:10.1002/lno.11709.
• **Nardelli, S., Cimino, M., Conroy, J. A., Fraser, W., Steinberg, D., Schofield, O. 2021. Krill availability in Adelie and Gentoo foraging regions south of Anvers Island, Antarctica. Limnology Oceanography DOI: 10.1002/lno.11750
• **Schultz, C., Doney, S. C., Hauck, J., Kavanaugh, M. T. Schofield, O. 2021. Modeling phytoplankton blooms and inorganic carbon responses to sea-ice variability in the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). Journal of Geophysical Research. Geosciences. DOI: 10.1002/essoar.10505538.1
• **Brown, S., Bowman, J. S., Lin, Y., Cassar, N., Schofield, O. 2021. Low diversity of key phytoplankton groups along the West Antarctic Peninsula. Limnology and Oceanography. DOI: 10.1002/lno.11765
• Bailey, K., Sipps, K., Saba, G.K., Arbuckle-Keil, G., Chant, R.J., Fahrenfeld, N.L. 2021. Quantification and composition of microplastics in the Raritan Hudson Estuary: Comparison to pathways of entry and implications for fate. Chemosphere 272: 129886, doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.129886.
• Optis, M., Kumler, A., Brodie, J., Miles, T. (2021). Quantifying sensitivity in numerical weather prediction‐modeled offshore wind speeds through an ensemble modeling approach. Wind Energy. DOI: 10.1002/we.2611

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

RUCOOL continues to attend numerous virtual meetings. Here is a sample of meetings which our team attended and/or presented: National Academies of Sciences and Engineering 2021 Ocean Decade Summit,  Understanding Gulf Oceans Systems (UGOS) Summit 2021, National Shellfisheries Association annual meeting, IOOS Annual Spring Meeting, SEBS Virtual Learning Experience, Underwater Glider Users Group Bi-Monthly Meeting, Navy Glider Hotwash Meeting, Ocean Decade US Launch Meeting on the UN Decade, Responsible Offshore Science Alliance (ROSA) Meeting, and the OOI Pioneer Array resiting meeting.

RUCOOL Updates: Dec. 2020 to Jan. 2021

University classes may have been closed for half of the reporting period, but as you will see, this has been a very busy time for the RUCOOL team in research, national strategic planning meetings, operations and in the virtual classroom.

State

• Three days, two thesis defenses: On December 14, Sarah Murphy presented her Master’s Thesis defense entitled “Coastal Upwelling and the Offshore Wind Environment”. On December 16th, Cliff Watkins wrapped up his PhD. with his dissertation presentation on “Mixed Layer Dynamics: Exploring the Impact of Storms in the Mid Atlantic Bight.”
• Grace Saba attended the OA Alliance (International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification) U.S. State meeting as part of her efforts with Jeanne Herb (Rutgers, Bloustein) and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to develop an ocean acidification Action Plan for the state of New Jersey.
• RUCOOL graduate student Emily Slesinger just published the second paper from her thesis, co-authored with Grace Saba. The paper is “Spawning phenology of rapidly shifting marine fish species throughout its range.”
• RU COOL faculty completed teaching their seven courses in the fall and have begun seven new courses for the spring including: Oceanography Seminar, Topics in Marine Science, Operational Ocean Modeling, Topics Course in Polar Systems, Integrated Ocean Observations 2, Science Pseudoscience and Society, and Field Laboratory Methods 2.
• Scott Glenn is serving as the faculty advisor to an Engineering Capstone Project team developing phone apps for underwater glider operators.
• Beginning in January, the RUCOOL team has refocused on outreach by improving our web and social media presence. We have linked our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin pages through the web page to more efficiently get our story out to students, researchers, funding agencies and the public.
• Josh Kohut and Joe Brodie attended the Time for Turbines (https://www.timeforturbines.org/) meeting. It was a 4th annual NJ focused offshore wind conference.  The meeting was a mix of panels, plenary and keynote sessions with RUCOOL well represented, including Joe who was an invited environmental panelist.
• RUCOOL faculty met with Monmouth University marine science faculty with a goal of establishing connections between MU undergraduates and the RU Masters in Operational Oceanography program. Our second cohort of Masters of OO students completed their first semester, which included drafts of their initial thesis proposals that they presented at the weekly RUCOOL science meeting.

National

• In January, NOAA hosted a workshop entitled “Integrating Ocean Observations to Improve NOAA’s Hurricane Intensity Forecasts”. RUCOOL/DMCS faculty, staff and graduate students participated throughout the workshop, including presentations by John Wilkin on the “Current State and Future Plans of Modeling and Data Assimilation Efforts for Hurricane Intensity Forecast: ROMS ocean model and DA” and by Scott Glenn on “Observing the Upper Ocean During Hurricanes: The Value of Coordinated Ocean Observations,” in a session moderated by Travis Miles. The overarching goal for the 150+ attendees was to develop a framework for coordinated ocean observing in support of hurricane intensity science and forecasting.
• Janice McDonnell and Sage Lichtenwaler were the lead authors on a chapter for the Ocean Observatories Initiative Science Plan released in January 2021. The chapter was entitled “Using Real-World Data from the Ocean Observatories Initiative in Teaching”.
• In December, the RUCOOL Education Team wrapped up their first pilot test of lab manual, “Exploration the Ocean with OOI Data“, a collection of laboratory exercises featuring data from the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The pilot included 20 undergraduate faculty from around the country.
• The Education Team completed training for deans/administrators from five Big 10 universities. They leveraged the Broader Impacts Wizard that they completed in January in partnership with the Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS).
• As part of a new NSF IUSE project with Rider University (Improving Undergraduate Scientific Explanations: Exploring the Role of Data Literacy Skills in Scientific Reasoning), Sage Lichtenwalner worked with faculty at Rider University to develop a series of new Data Explorations that will be pilot tested by students in the spring semester.
• The Education Team rebranded the COSEE NOW YouTube channel to Rutgers Marine Sciences Education. We have posted the first two of 10 new videos that will promote Polar Literacy Principles and Polar scientists.
• On Thursday, January 28, RUCOOL’s Josh Kohut and Joe Brodie co-hosted (with Rutgers Cooperative Extension) its 2021 Partners in Science Workshop: Identifying Ecological Metrics and Sampling Strategies for Baseline Monitoring During Offshore Wind Development. The workshop, sponsored by the NJ Board of Public Utilities, was attended by over 80 individuals representing federal and state agencies, the commercial and recreational fishing industries, the offshore wind industry, environmental groups, and academics throughout the region.
• The NOAA Science Advisory Board’s Environmental Services Working Group (EISWG), co-chaired by Brad Colman from the Climate Corporation and Scott Glenn, continued to ramp up activities in support of the Congressional Weather Act. These include: (a) Joint meetings with the Climate working group on NOAA’s many service delivery programs; (b) Initiation of reviews of NOAA’s Seasonal to Subseasonal Forecast Plan and the Weather Radar Plan; (c) Follow up on its review for the Hurricane Forecast Improvement plan; (d) Restructuring of its annual Report to Congress procedure for 2021; and (e) Responding to a new request from Congress to, by the end of 2021, provide a report identifying future priorities for Congressional investment in the National Weather Service.
• RUCOOL undergraduate student, Allison Proszowski, presented a talk at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting entitled “Assessing the Impact of Spatial Variability and Wake Effects on Power Prediction for NJ Offshore Wind Energy Area.”

International

• The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Ocean Studies Board (Scott Glenn is a member) that forms the U.S. Committee to define the U.S. contribution to the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, reviewed the nearly 100 OceanShot submissions, engaged early career representatives, and developed the agenda for the February 2021 launch meeting for the U.S. response.
• RUCOOL is one of the key initial partners in the proposed Caribe Corredores project to improve climate monitoring and hurricane forecasting in the Caribbean Corridor for the U.N. Ocean Decade. The proposal was submitted to the U.S. Committee as an OceanShot and to the U.N. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission as a collaborative project from the Global Ocean Observing Systems Regional Alliance for the Caribbean. The Caribe Corredores project was accepted as one of the OceanShot posters to be presented at the U.S, launch.
• Grace Saba was one of several collaborative experts that published a comprehensive assessment of the status quo and future of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it. See the press release from Alfred Wegener Institute (here) and the paper now published in Biological Reviews: https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12679.
• Grace Saba and Scott Glenn participated in the global OceanOPS OceanGliders Steering Committee as the leads of the Ecosystems Working Group and the Storms Working Group, respectively.
• As lead of the SWARM Antarctica project, Josh Kohut hosted a series of virtual meetings entitled the SWARM Science Extravaganza that included several members of the RUCOOL team and numerous global partners. The 4 day meeting covered topics on Antarctic Physics, Phytoplankton & Mammals, Krill, and integrative science.

Newly Funded Research

• Vetelsen, “Challenger Glider Mission,” S. Glenn, O. Schofield and T. Miles ($150,000).
• Rider University (NSF), “Improving Undergraduate Scientific Explanations: Exploring the Role of Data Literacy Skills in Scientific Reasoning,” S. Lictenwalner ($18,435).
• University of Connecticut (NASA), “Quantifying linkages between sea ice, phytoplankton community composition, and air-sea carbon fluxes,” O.Schofield ($75,492)

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

• Slesinger, E., Jensen, O., Saba, G.K. Spawning phenology of a rapidly shifting marine fish species throughout its range. ICES Journal of Marine Science, doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsaa252.
• Gutt, J., Isla, E., Xavier, J., Adams, B., Ahn, I.-Y., Cheng, C.-H., Colesi, C., Cummings, V., di Prisco, G., Griffiths, H., Hawes, I., Hogg, I., McIntyre, T., Meiners, K., Pearse, D., Peck, L., Piepenburg, D., Reisinger, R., Saba, G.K., Schloss, I., Signori, C., Smith, C.R., Vacchi, M., Verde, C., Wall, D. 2020. Antarctic ecosystems in transition – life between stresses and opportunities. Biological Reviews, doi:1111/brv.12679.
• Literature Review: Miles, T., Murphy, S., Kohut, J., Borsetti, S., Munroe, D. Dec. 2020. Could federal wind farms influence continental shelf oceanography and alter associated ecological processes? Science Center for Marine Fisheries.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

RUCOOL continues to attend numerous virtual meetings. Here is a sample of meetings which our team attended and/or presented: OceanOPS Ocean Gliders Steering Committee meeting, American Geophysical Union Meeting, UG2 Gliders Meeting, Hurricane Glider Hotwash, NYSERDA State of the Science workshop, OA Alliance (International Alliance to Combat Ocean Acidification), NOAA NEFSC State of the Ecosystem synthesis workshop, Integrating Ocean Observations to Improve NOAA’s Hurricane Intensity Forecasts, NJ Partners in Science Workshop. SWARM 4 Day Workshop, Time for Turbines, Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean.

RUCOOL Updates: October & November 2020

As we near the end of the fall 2020 semester, our team remains healthy and productive having followed the Rutgers COVID-19 guidelines and our own procedures for staying safe. We wish you all a healthy and safe start to 2021.

State

• RU COOL faculty continue to be involved in teaching 7 classes this Fall term.  Courses include: Software Bootcamp, Ocean Observing, Ocean Modeling and Synthesis, Biological Oceanography, Waves and Sediment Transport, Undergraduate Ocean Observing, Freshmen Oceanography House.
• Grace Saba gave invited presentations at the New Jersey Water Monitoring Council meeting hosted by NJDEP and the New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists annual meeting. Grace’s PhD student Emily Slesinger and undergraduate student Kernan Bates both presented a talk at the Mid-Atlantic Chapter American Fisheries Society meeting.
• The second cohort of the Masters in Operational Oceanography program is wrapping up its first semester. In addition to successfully engaging with remote learning, the students led the remote operations of an underwater glider, deployed for 2 months in the Caribbean.
• Operational Oceanography Program Alumna Julia Engdahl was recently recognized by NOAA for her paper “Bringing Sea Level Rise to Life with GIS and Python”. Julia created a code-based animation of sea level rise from NOAA stations which was recently incorporated into NOAA’s National GeoPlatform.
• The Ørsted ECO-PAM glider, RU34, conducted its second mission from October 3 through November 5. During that mission, it detected 17 tagged fish, along with humpback whales on 5 days and fin whales on 23 days. The glider was redeployed for its third mission on November 19, and detected its first North Atlantic Right Whale the next day. (link: https://go.rutgers.edu/ECO-PAM).
• RU COOL was invited to film a 5-minute documentary on its ECO-PAM project with Ørsted as part of the AGU TV series associated with the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The video featured footage of the glider team, and interviews with Josh Kohut and Joseph Brodie. (link to video: https://go.rutgers.edu/ECO-PAM-Video).

National

• Scott Glenn chaired the NOAA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Environmental Information Services Working Group (EISWG) Task Team for the review of NOAA’s Response to Congress on the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP). The HFIP Review was approved by EISWG for submission to the SAB, and the SAB approved it for submission to the NOAA Administrator and Congress.   Scott Glenn was commended for his use of external Subject Matter Experts to strengthen the review, an approach that set a new bar for EISWG and was subsequently adopted by SAB.  Scott was appointed Acting Co-chair of the full EISWG, pending his approval by the full SAB.
• The RUCOOL Glider Team was involved in deploying, piloting or recovering 11 gliders in October and November for 5 funded projects that include research on hurricane intensity in the mid-Atlantic and Caribbean, and whale migrations and water quality along NJ. The R/Vs Rutgers and Arabella were used extensively for deployment and recoveries out of Tuckerton. Data from all of these gliders can be found here.
• Travis Miles is the regional lead, coordinating the deployment of gliders during hurricanes and tropical cyclones. The team captured ocean upwelling and cooling ahead of and during tropical storm Isaias, which lead to widespread damage and power outages throughout New Jersey. Investigations of the oceans feedback on the storm are ongoing.
•  The Rutgers Hurricane Blog finished the 2020 hurricane season with 50 entries contributed by Scott Glenn and Travis Miles. The regional distribution of hurricane blog entries reflects the extremely active hurricane season experienced in the Gulf of Mexico (58% of entries), and the many scientific investigations this season will launch. In the Mid Atlantic, Hurricane Isaias was identified as a third type of MAB hurricane resulting in rapid co-evolution of the ocean and atmosphere.  We now have Isaias as an onshore storm resulting in coastal upwelling and rapid ocean cooling possibly contributing to storm weakening, Irene as continental shelf storm resulting in rapid mixing, ocean cooling and storm weakening, and Sandy as an offshore storm resulting in rapid downwelling that leaves the sea surface warm and promotes intensification.
• Oscar Schofield was elected to the Board of Trustees for the Consortium of Ocean Leadership (2021-2023).
• The RUCOOL Education team completed their online after school program in Boulder, Colorado, which was focused on teaching 6^th graders about polar science.
• RUCOOL invites you to read our Education Team’s blog on Antarctica Week at https://polar-ice.org/2020/12/happy-antarctica-week-2020/.
• The Education Team continues to work on the Broader Impacts Wizard and participate in an ARIS – Organization Research Impact Capacity (ORIC) Program with Purdue, Michigan State, University of Nebraska, U.C. Berkeley, and the University of Idaho.
• The Data Labs Blog had numerous articles added that focus on Ocean Observing Education, storytelling with data, Python tutorials and examples of Labs.

International

• Oscar Schofield was chosen by NSF-NASA-NOAA to co-chair the G7 Global Biogeochemical Array International Virtual Meeting in 2021.
• Scott Glenn and Travis Miles continue to build the Caribe Corredores international partnership for improved hurricane forecasting working with Global Ocean Observing System’s regional alliance IOCARIBE. An OceanShots proposal was submitted to the U.S. National Academies’ Committee for the U.N. Ocean Decade in preparation for the broader January submission to UNESCO.

Awards

• Emily Slesinger (PhD student, Saba) received the Best Student Oral Presentation Award at the Mid-Atlantic Chapter American Fisheries Society meeting. Congratulations to Emily and her mentor, Grace Saba!
• The Rutgers 4-H STEM Ambassador Team received the SEBS/NJAES Team Excellence Award. Congrats to Janice McDonnell, Christine Bean, Alesha Vega and the rest of the team!

Newly Funded Research

• University of Delaware (NOAA-IOOS), “Mid-Atlantic Glider Support of Hurricane Intensity Forecasts”, T. Miles ($443,749).
• National Science Foundation Supplemental, “Engaging Faculty and Students in Learning with OOI Data Explorations”, J. McDonnell ($98,000).
• Woods Hold Institute of Oceanography “Wind Mapping from HF RADAR Measurements”, H. Roarty ($59,587).

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

• Roarty, H., Glenn, S., Brodie, J., Nazzaro, L., Smith, M., Handel, E., Josh Kohut, Teresa Updyke, Larry Atkinson, William Boicourt, Wendell Brown, Harvey Seim, Mike Muglia, Haixing Wang, and Donglai Gong. (2020). Annual and seasonal surface circulation over the Mid-Atlantic Bight Continental Shelf derived from a decade of High Frequency Radar observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125, e2020JC016368. DOI: 10.1029/2020JC016368
• **Wright‐Fairbanks, E. K., Miles, T. N., Cai, W.‐J., Chen, B., & Saba, G. K. (2020). Autonomous observation of seasonal carbonate chemistry dynamics in the Mid‐Atlantic Bight. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125, e2020JC016505. DOI: 10.1029/2020JC016505.
  • This publication was selected as a Research Spotlight in American Geophysical Society Eos, doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO151558.
• Seroka, G., Fredj, E., and Dunk, R. (2020). Analysis of Sea Breeze Types Using WRF and Lagrangian Methods: Update Using RU-WRF Configuration AquaWind, LLC
• **Watkins, C., Daniel B. Whitt, D. (2020). Large-aspect-ratio structures in simulated ocean surface boundary layer turbulence under a hurricane. 2020. J. Phys. Oceanography 1–70. DOI: 10.1175/JPO-D-20-0134.1
• Eichhorn, M., Aragon, D., Shardt, Y., Roarty, H. (2020). Modeling for the performance of navigation, control and data postprocessing of underwater gliders. Applied Ocean Research 101.
• Yousefvand, M., Wu, C.-T. M., Wang, R.-Q., Brodie, J., & Mandayam, N. (2020). Modeling the Impact of 5G Leakage on Weather Prediction. In 2020 IEEE 3rd 5G World Forum (5GWF) (pp. 291–296). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/5GWF49715.2020.9221472.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

Though there were no in person meetings due to COVID, there were plenty of virtual meetings during the last two months which our team attended and/or presented: New Jersey Water Monitoring Council meeting hosted by NJDEP, New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists annual meeting, Mid-Atlantic Chapter American Fisheries Society meeting, MARACOOS Annual Meeting, MTS Global Oceans, AGU Ocean Sciences, RODA Fisheries and Offshore Wind Energy: Synthesis of the Science, NYSERDA Workshop: State of the Science on Offshore Wind – Cumulative Impacts to Wildlife.

RUCOOL Updates: August & September 2020

As we transitioned from summer to a new school year, RUCOOL spun up virtual teaching for 7 fall semester courses and continued delivering on 28 research projects in a safe manner, enabled by Rutgers COVID-19 guidelines and our own documented procedures for remaining safe at sea and on shore.

State

• RU COOL faculty are involved in teaching 7 classes this Fall term.  Courses include: Software Bootcamp, Ocean Observing, Ocean Modeling and Synthesis, Biological Oceanography, Waves and Sediment Transport, Undergraduate Ocean Observing, Freshmen Oceanography House.
• The first two Masters of Operational Oceanography students defended their theses in August! Julia Engdahl presented her talk on “Developing an Automated Analysis of Fish Migration Video Using Computer Vision Algorithms” in mid August, and in late August, Joe Anarumo presented on “An Open-Source Software Application for Drifter Trajectory Prediction in the Mid-Atlantic Bight”. They have already acquired jobs as oceanographic data analysts at NOAA CO-OPS and Sage Environmental consulting. Congrats to Joe and Julia on jobs well done!
• The second cohort of students have started their fall classes and thesis project. Students are participating in the operations of glider RU29 deployed in the Caribbean to help improve hurricane forecasting. Along with classes and research the students are learning to operate and make decisions about the glider deployment with daily ‘mission control’ meetings.
• Oscar Schofield was named Chair of the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Chair Council.
• The RUCOOL Education team just completed an online program for 156 middle school kids through the ENIGMA project. ENIGMA strives to answer the question “Are we alone in the Universe?” To answer this fundamental question, scientists from Rutgers University and NASA are going all the way back to Earth’s beginning — back before there were people, dinosaurs, or even plants! The team also completed a new trailer for their research/education work.
• The Ørsted ECO-PAM glider, RU34, completed its first mission on August 26, after spending 28 days surveying the Ocean Wind offshore wind lease area. During that mission, it detected 4 tagged fish, and a fin whale on August 23. It was also at sea during Hurricane Isaias, contributing its data to the other hurricane glider data being taken at the time. The glider is expected to be redeployed in early October. (link: https://go.rutgers.edu/ECO-PAM).
• Through its ongoing work with NJ BPU, RUCOOL contributed to the New Jersey Offshore Wind Strategic Plan, issued by the State of New Jersey in September. (Link: https://www.nj.gov/bpu/pdf/Final_NJ_OWSP_9-9-20.pdf).
• Grace Saba worked alongside Jeanne Herb (Bloustein School) and graduate student Janine Barr (DMCS) to create a science-informed framework for the NJDEP’s overall ocean acidification initiative. They provided consultative science and planning and policy expertise over a compressed period of time for NJDEP to plan, research and design a comprehensive science-informed statewide ocean acidification initiative that may be included in the Coastal Resilience Plan under Gov. Murphy’s executive order 89.

National

• Oscar Schofield has been named Chair of the National Academy Sciences Study “Mid-Course Assessment of NSF progress on 2015 Strategic Vision for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research”.
• Scott Glenn is chairing the NOAA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Environmental Information Services Working Group (EISWG) Task Team for the review of NOAA’s Response to Congress on the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program. Draft report submitted for internal EISWG review.
• The RUCOOL Glider Team was involved either in deploying, piloting or recovering 11 gliders in August and September. Our partners in these deployments include the Univ. of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the University of Delaware, US Navy, and CARICOOS. During this time of year, the science focus is hurricanes predictability, however supports study of ocean pH, listening for whales, track fish and other tagged animals, and water quality in NJ coastal waters. Data from all of these gliders can be found here.
• RUCOOL maintains the high profile Hurricane Blog. It documents in real-time research findings for August and September focused on Isaias, Laura, Marco and Sally. The blog site is circulated by NOAA leadership and was distributed through the US IOOS Eyes-on-the-Ocean as a recommended data resource (https://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/blog/category/hurricanes/).
• The RUCOOL Education Team completed an annual report for The Polar Literacy project. An online flipbook of the report is available here. The report includes evaluation results; a summary of the advice and guidance of their advisors; and our second year (2021) plans summarized, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Our Education Team also just completed a new Broader Impacts Wizard. The Wizard will help applicants develop a broader impacts plan that will satisfy the National Science Foundation Broader Impact requirements and fulfill their interest in communicating your science.
• The Data Labs Blog continues to feature articles on Ocean Observing Education, Python tutorials and examples of Labs. Additionally, the Education Team also has completed several new OOI Data Python Notebooks that involve students in data analysis through interactive widgets.
• MSC research partners from Rutgers University released a RFI for next generation sensor technology for Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Services (VTS).  Collectively, the research team received responses from ten companies primarily focused on radar and camera technologies.  The team will be reviewing the submissions this fall to assess how the technology will integrate into Coast Guard VTS operations.  They will then model the sensor types based on the specifications supplied in the RFI and will make recommendations on the most promising technologies in a final report to the Coast Guard in late December.
• Scott Glenn attended the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems (UGOS) coordination meeting, reporting on the new HF Radar Quality Control procedures developed by the RUCOOL operations team that sets a new standard for the U.S. National HF Radar network.

International

• Oscar Schofield chaired the virtual science symposium focused on the West Antarctic Peninsula on behalf of the International Southern Ocean Observing System.
• Oscar Schofield was asked to Chair the virtual symposium of the Global Biogeochemical Argo program for G7 nations on behalf of the National Science Foundation and NASA.
• Scott Glenn was an invited speaker on Ocean Observing for the US-Indonesia (NOAA-BMKG) 3-day virtual collaboration meeting on climate and weather. BMKG Academy students are excellent candidates for the DMCS Masters in Operational Oceanography.
• Serving on the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Ocean Studies Board (OSB), Scott Glenn is working on the U.S. Committee for the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to help launch the coordinated U.S. effort in October.

Student Awards

• Emily Slesinger was selected as a runner-up for the 2020 J. Frances Allen Scholarship Award. The scholarship was established in 1986 to honor Allen, who pioneered women’s involvement in the AFS and in the field of fisheries. The scholarship award comes with $2,500. Congratulations to Emily and her mentor, Grace Saba!

Newly Funded Research

• State of NJ Department of Environmental Protection, “Glider deployments for water quality monitoring”, Kohut ($84,464).
• National Science Foundation, “Supplemental Funding LTER Palmer, Antarctica (PAL): Land-Shelf-Ocean Connectivity, Ecosystem Resilience and Transformation in a Sea-Ice Influenced Pelagic Ecosystem”. This proposal was transferred to Rutgers to be the lead institution. Schofield, ($592,668).
• L3Harris (DARPA), “Timely Information for Maritime Engagements”, Glenn ($130,000).
• NOAA IOOS Alaska Ocean Observing System, “Autonomous Assessment of pH and Plankton in the Southeastern Gulf of Alaska”, Saba ($212,507).
• NSF Collaborative Research, “Developing a profiling glider pH sensor for high resolution coastal ocean acidification monitoring”, Saba ($164,347).
• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, “Creating a framework to support efforts of the New Jersey Coastal Management Program to address ocean acidification as an element of state coastal climate resilience planning”, Saba with Jeanne Herb ($56,985)

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

• **Xu, Y., Miles, T., Oscar Schofield. O. 2020. Physical processes controlling chlorophyll-a variability on the Mid-Atlantic Bight along northeast United States. Journal of Marine Systems Volume 2012. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmarsys.2020.103433
• **Slesinger, E., Langan, J., Sullivan, B., Borkman, D., Smayda, T.. 2020. Multi-decadal (1972–2019) Mnemiopsis leidyi (Ctenophora) abundance patterns in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, USA. Journal of Plankton Research, fbaa035. DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbaa035
• Barr, J., Bean, C., McDonnell, J. Aug 20, 2020. Strategies for Running a Successful Virtual Career Panel. Oceanography The Official Magazine of the Oceanography Society. DOI: 10.5670/oceanog.2020.220
• R. Lindeman, F. Straneo, N. J. Wilson, J. M. Toole, R. A. Krishfeld, N. L. Beaird , T. Kanzow J. Schaffer, 2020. Ocean circulation and variability beneath Nioghalvfjerdsbræ (79 North Glacier) ice tongue. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. e2020JC016091. DOI: 10.1029/2020JC016091
• Friedland, K. D., Morse, R., Manning, J., Melrose, D., Miles, T., Goode, A., Brady, D., Kohut, J., Powell, E. 2020. Trends and change points in surface and bottom thermal environments of the US Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem. Fisheries Oceanography 29(5):396-414. DOI: 10.1111/fog.12485

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

• Though there were no in person meetings due to COVID, there were plenty of virtual meetings during the last two months: Ocean Hackweek Workshop, Offshore Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation Webinar Series, Presentations to several local NJ Schools on various oceanography topics, Ocean Best Practices System Workshop IV, NJ PACT Stakeholder Meetings on Offshore Wind and Renewable Energy. New Jersey Water Monitoring Council Meeting, numerous recurrent hurricane meetings, including (a) national Hurricane Glider Picket Line coordination, (b) Extreme Event Ocean Observing Task Team (EEOOTT), (c) hurricane science meeting with NOAA Research Lab AOML, National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Ocean Studies Board (OSB) Meetings.

RUCOOL Updates: June & July, 2020

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, RUCOOL remains active.  Core technologies (storm gliders, HF-Radar and the Tuckerton meteorological station) were deemed critical research tools based on national security requirements and continue to be supported. These activities are guided by an operations plan that maintains recommended COVID best practices.

State

• Working with Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, RUCOOL installed a wind LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) instrument alongside the causeway leading to RUMFS in Tuckerton, NJ. This fully autonomous sensor platform, owned and operated by Atlantic Shores, will provide observations of the atmospheric wind profile for the next several years, and provide vital information on the wind to stakeholders in the area.
• RUCOOL continues to participate in the public comment actions of both BOEM and NJBPU to contribute our expertise on ocean and atmospheric related monitoring and mitigation as it applies to the implementation of the offshore wind industry along the New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic coasts.
• The RUCOOL Education Team worked on the Virtual 4-H STEM Ambassadors program that supported 60 teens from Trenton, Union, Atlantic City, Passaic, New Brunswick, and Newark in an online summer program.

• Glider RU34, a new Slocum glider purchased for the Orsted ECO-PAM project, was deployed on July 29. The glider is equipped with the passive acoustic sensor designed to track vocalizing right whales in the area within and around Orsted’s Ocean Wind lease area off of NJ. Within hours of deployment, the glider identified tagged marine animals.
• On July 22, a catamaran flipped off the NJ coast, and was left to drift when the operators were rescued. The derelict boat became a drifting marine hazard. Operational Oceanography Graduate Student Joe Anarumo ran several drift simulations that predicted the current and future locations of the boat, guiding the recovery effort.
• The first two Masters of Operational Oceanography students will be defending their theses in August! They have already acquired jobs as oceanographic data analysts at NOAA CO-OPS and a consulting company. The second cohort of students are preparing for classes this fall. Students will ‘adopt-an-instrument’ and follow the full life-cycle collection of data this fall for improved hurricane forecasting, ocean acidification monitoring, and offshore wind assessment.
• The R/V Arabella, Rutgers’ flagship research vessel throughout the 90’s and early 2000’s, returned to service on May 20, 2019.  Progress has been made in recent months to enhance capabilities and meet specifications largely outside of typical operations, with a short term goal of qualifying as a support vessel for local, sustainable wind energy development offshore.  Bon voyage, Arabella!

National

• During the busiest hurricane season ever through July 31, the RUCOOL glider team organized glider deployments throughout the Mid Atlantic, funded by NOAA. Partners this year include UMass Dartmouth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the University of Delaware, SUNY Stony Brook, Monmouth University and the US Navy. In July, RUCOOL, in partnership with Monmouth University, deployed two US Navy gliders along the NJ Coast. Additionally, RU33 was deployed in support of the NOAA Hurricanes project. These three gliders are the first in what is expected to be a fleet of 7-10 gliders in the mid-Atlantic this summer focused on studying the ocean physics that impacts hurricane intensity. Information on and data from these gliders can be accessed at https://oceansmap.maracoos.org/ and https://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/data/gliders/
• RUCOOL maintains the high profile Hurricane Blog. It documents in real-time research findings focused on Fay, Gonzalo, Hanna and Isaias. The blog site (https://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/blog/category/hurricanes/)is circulated by NOAA leadership and was distributed through the US IOOS Eyes-on-the-Ocean as a recommended data resource.
• The RUCOOL Education team’s Polar Literacy project is creating replicable means of bringing polar education to informal learning environments, extending our understanding of how polar education initiatives can be delivered to youth, and designing a professional development model to improve the capacity for Polar Region researchers to craft meaningful broader impacts. This summer we are offering several virtual online weeklong programs for middle school youth including July 27-31 Ohio 4-H Program, July 27-31 The Franklin Institute, PA, August 3-7 NJ 4-H (Newark), August 10-14, NJ 4-H (Trenton).

• Given the response to COVID, The NSF funded residential summer internship program, RIOS, had to be quickly reimagined.   Working with NSF  and the Data Labs project team, we were able to offer fully virtual experiences to an exceptions cohort of students across the country, including all time zones between Guam and Puerto Rico See https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/2020-virtual-reu/.
• The Data Labs team, in partnership with Rutgers RIOS, hosted an 8-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program for 16 students across the country, including Alaska, Guam and Puerto Rico. The experience started with a 2-week workshop with daily Zoom sessions on working with large datasets, an introduction to Python programming, science communication and career and graduate student panels.  Students then spent 6-weeks working with mentors across the country on individual research projects. Their final posters are available on the project site, along with a map.
• The Data Labs team continues to work with faculty partners on the Data Labs Notebook which will be pilot tested this fall by 15 faculty.  We are also continuing to work with our 2020 Fellows as they finalize their projects.
• The Data Labs Blog continues to feature articles on Ocean Observing Education, Python tutorials and examples of Labs.

International

• Travis Miles joined Scott Glenn on the NOAA Global Ocean Monitoring and Observation (GOMO) Program, specifically to work on their Ocean Observing for Extreme Events (OOEE) Team. The team is coordinating glider, Argo and surface drifter deployments for the 2020 hurricane season. Response to Isaias was the first coordinated event.

Student Awards

• Congratulations to Jessica Valenti on being selected to receive a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Award. Using the Rutgers University Marine Field Station’s larval fish collection spanning the last 30 years, Jessica will investigate microplastic ingestion in larval fish from past and present to better understand the potential for microplastic accumulation in larval fish predators and examine larval fish characteristics that may influence microplastic ingestion. In addition, Jessica will help improve methods commonly used to identify microplastics, mentor undergraduate students on independent research projects.

Newly Funded Research

• US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS), NOAA, 2020-2021, “Mid Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observation System” ($4,053,639), S. Glenn.
• Office of Naval Research, 2020-2022, “Onboard Processing of Slocum Glider Velocity Profiles” ($545,809), T. Miles.
• Consortium for Ocean Leadership (through NSF), 2020, modification to “OOI Educational Support and Synthesis Based on the Initial Phase,” ($20,000), S. Glenn.

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

• Beaird, N. L., Shroyer, E. L., Juranek, L. W., Hales, B., & Goñi, M. A. 2020. Nutrient‐rich gravity current formed by upwelling in Barrow Canyon: High‐resolution observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 125, e2020JC016160. DOI: 10.1029/2020JC016160
• Sherman, J.,,  Gorbunov, M., Schofield, O., Falkowski, P. 2020. Photosynthetic energy conversion efficiency in the West Antarctic Peninsula. Limonlogy and Oceanography. DOI: 10.1002/lno.11562
• Carvalho, F., Gorbunov, M., Haskins, C., Oliver, M. J., Kohut, J., Aragon, D., Schofield, O. 2020. Mapping variable chlorophyll fluorescence using autonomous underwater gliders. Limnology and Oceanography Methods. DOI:10.1002/lom3.10380PDF
• Eichhorn, M., Aragon, D., Yuri A.W. Shardt, Hugh Roarty. August 2020. Modeling for the performance of navigation, control and data post-processing of underwater gliders. Applied Ocean Research Volume 101. DOI:10.1016/j.apor.2020.102191

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

• Though there were no in person meetings due to COVID, there were plenty of virtual meetings during the last two months: MARACOOS Board Meetings (several meetings), LTER Executive meeting, SCAR West Antarctic Working Group, Marine Technology Society Board Meeting, MAC Fish Habitat Workshop, Microrider Training 3 Day Workshop, Mid Atlantic Harbor Operations Meeting, USCG Wind Turbine Mitigation Meeting, Presentations to several local NJ Schools on various oceanography topics, Modeling, Prediction and Sensor Network for Coastal Flooding on the US East Coast, Weekly GOGO OOEE Meetings, Biweekly National Academies’ Ocean Studies Board meetings on the US Contribution to the Ocean Decade, and on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Ocean Sciences, Weekly NOAA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Environmental Information Services Working Group reviewing NOAA’s response to the Weather Act, Interagency Ocean Observing Committee (IOOC) meeting on the UN Ocean Decade, IOOS Data Management Monthly Call.

RUCOOL Updates: April & May, 2020

Despite the COVID-19, RUCOOL remains active.  Core technologies (storm gliders and HF Radar) were deemed critical research tools based on national security requirements and continue to be supported. These activities are guided by an operations plan that maintains recommended COVID best practices.

State

• On June 3, Rutgers scientists observed the ocean and atmospheric response to a derecho that passed through NJ.  The RUCOOL meteorological tower in Tuckerton NJ recorded a peak wind gust of 54 mph alongside a 21-degree temperature drop in only 15 minutes.  The Rutgers HF-Radar station detected a meteotsunami hitting New Jersey.
• The 4-H STEM program continues to support summer learning with the STEM Blog and 4-H from Home programs.
• RUCOOL took delivery of RU34, a new Slocum glider purchased for the Orsted ECO-PAM project. The glider is equipped with the passive acoustic sensor designed track vocalizing right whales in the area within and around Orsted’s Ocean Wind lease area off of NJ. The R/V Rutgers was formally approved by Orsted’s health and safety department and can now be used for Orsted-RU collaborative work.
• Through NSF funding, We took deliver a multi-frequency active BioSonics system for continuously measuring fish and zooplankton at the RUMFS which will be coupled to a SubSea hydrophone to track marine mammals.
• The first two Masters of Operational Oceanography have formalized their thesis.  One of the students has been hired by NOAA even before graduation.

National

• The hurricane season is upon us and the RUCOOL glider team is organizing a fleet of glider deployments throughout the Mid Atlantic, funded by NOAA. Partners this year include UMass Dartmouth, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the University of Delaware, SUNY Stony Brook, Monmouth University and the US Navy. RUCOOL will be deploying and recovering the Navy gliders.
• RUCOOL presented overviews of Glider and HR-Radar to members of mid-Atlantic US congress (Senate and House). They reviewed the technologies and their critical needs to support NWS hurricane forecast improvements, USCG search and rescue, and the newly developed wave forecasts.
• Scott Glenn joined Mark Abbott (Director and President of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) and John Delaney (Professor Emeritus, University of Washington) as new members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Ocean Studies Board (OSB). The NASEM OSB is the official U.S. Committee for the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development is charged with coordinating the U.S. contributions to the U.N. Decade.
• Scott Glenn began posting to the RUCOOL Hurricane Blog on May 15 for the 2020 hurricane season.  The blog site (link here) has been circulated within NOAA leadership circles and was distributed through the US IOOS Eyes-on-the-Ocean as one of their recommended data resources.

• The RIOS program together with the Data Labs project team launched a new virtual REU program for 15 undergraduates from around the country in rapid response to COVID 19.  See https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/2020-virtual-reu/.
• The RUCOOL Engagement and Outreach team is completing a four part professional development program for 8 early career polar scientists. They will create new curriculum for presentation to the Newark Public School District this summer as a summer enrichment program.  Our focus will be on building student’s polar literacy and data skills.  See polar-ice.org

International

• Travis Miles was invited to be on the steering committee for the Interagency Ocean Observing Committee Underwater Glider User Group. This team is slated to lead the international efforts on underwater glider operations, science, QA/QC, best practices, organizing international meetings and driving the future development of these gliders and associated instrumentation.
• IOCARIBE, the Global Ocean Observing System’s (GOOS) Implementing Organization for the Caribbean Sea, voted to endorse the Caribe Corredores plan prepared by Scott Glenn, Doug Wilson of Ocean and Coastal Observing -Virgin Islands (OCO-VI) and Tony Knap of Texas A&M University as a component of their contribution to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.  The plan proposes to implement the HF Radar and glider observational components contained in the Rutgers MacArthur pre-proposal.
• Scott Glenn was asked to join the NOAA Global Ocean Monitoring and Observation (GOMO) Program, specifically to work on their Extreme Events Team. The team’s first task is to plan the integrated ocean/atmosphere hurricane experiment for the 2021 season.
• NSF is moving ahead to grant the Rutgers Palmer LTER project a field season. Given disruptions associated with COVID, this will likely be one of the few field efforts in Southern Ocean this coming year supported by the United States.  Scientists will have to take a 2-week quarantine onboard the ship prior to the deployment.

Student Awards

• Congratulations to Michael Brown for his successful PhD defense.  His thesis was focused on the “Drivers of phytoplankton dynamics, and corresponding impacts on biogeochemistry, along the West Antarctic Peninsula”.  His thesis examined how the physics drives the phytoplankton dynamics and the consequences on the biogeochemistry.  Congrats to Mike for an excellent piece of work!
• Emily Slesinger will receive $1000 from the George Burlew Scholarship program (Manasquan River Marline & Tuna Club).  Her research focus is on the optimal thermal and oxygen niches for black sea bass and use the information to better understand their potential population trajectories in the future.
• Hailey Conrad is a member of the Rutgers Honors College. She began doing research her freshman year with DMCS by volunteering in the OOI Hydrothermal Vent Lab where she reconstructed time lapse video of hydrothermal vents. She working with the Schofield lab in Antarctica to monitor phytoplankton populations and working as an Arresty Research Assistant in the Pinsky lab fishery changes in the face of climate-induced range shifts.

Newly Funded Research

• NOAA IOOS Alaska Ocean Observing System, 2020-2021, “Gulf of Alaska pH Glider” ($73,838), Grace Saba.
• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 2020-20201, “Creating a framework to support efforts of the New Jersey Coastal Management Program to address ocean acidification as an element of state coastal climate resilience planning, ($56,985), Grace Saba.

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

• Chai, F., Johnson, K., Claustre, H., Xiaogang, X., Want, Y., Boss, E., Riser, S., Fennel, K., Schofield, O., and Sutton, A. 2020. Monitoring ocean biogeochemistry.Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-020-0053- y.
• Friedland K., Morse R., Manning J., Melrose D., Miles T., Goode A., Brady D., Kohut J., and Powell E.  Trends and change points in surface and bottom thermal environments of the US Northeast Continental Shelf Ecosystem. Fish Oceanogr. 2020;00:1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/fog.12485.
• Conroy, J., Steinberg, D., Thibodeau, P., and Schofield, O. 2020. Zooplankton diel vertical migration during Antarctic summer. Deep Sea Research II org/10.1016/j.dsr.2020.103324.
• Lim, H., Miles, T., Glenn, S., Kim, D., Kim, M., Shim, J., Chun, I., and Hwang, K. 2020. Rapid ocean destratification by typhoon Soulik over the highly stratified waters of west Jeju Island, Korea. In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp. 1480–1484. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

Though there were no in person meetings due to COVID, there were plenty of virtual meetings during the last two months: MARACOOS Board Meetings (several meetings), Matos/ACT workshop, EISWG Steering Committee Meeting, MARCO Webinar, MARACOOS Portal Webinar for MARCO, Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program Meetings – Invited Talk, MARACOOS Congressional Briefing Ocean Observing Policy: HF-Radar, Improving Tropical Storm Intensity Forecasts with Real Time Data, Appropriations Supplemental Funds (IFAA) 2019-2020 Hurricane Gliders Workshop, MARACOOS Congressional Briefing Ocean Observing Policy: Gliders, MARACOOS Meetings with New USCG Leadership in the Mid-Atlantic, MARACOOS Strategic Planning roll out, TIMEly L3 Kickoff Meeting, Orsted ECOPAM Kickoff Meeting.

RUCOOL Updates: February to March, 2020

Despite the COVID-19, RUCOOL remains active and excelling.  Core technologies (storm gliders and HF Radar) were deemed critical research tools based on national security requirements and continue to be supported. These activities are guided by an operations plan that maintains recommended self-distancing practices. In fact, RUCOOL has developed standard operating procedures for glider deployments leveraging social distancing requirements, which have been shared with multiple funding agencies and research partners. The operating guidelines are available upon request.

State

• In early April, the first operational oceanography Masters students will be submitting abstracts of their thesis to the Marine Technology Society OCEANS meeting. One of the Masters students has already accepted a job working for NOAA’s operational oceanography service following her degree.

• RUCOOL initiated two projects with Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, the joint NJ offshore wind project between EDF Renewables and Shell New Energies. One project is installing a vertically pointing wind lidar at the Rutgers Marine Field Station. The second is a modeling study of visibility conditions along the NJ coast.
• RUCOOL hosted Commissioner Dianne Solomon of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for a tour and discussion of offshore wind.

• In March, 4-H launched a Virtual 4-H at Home Short Term Exploratory Program (STEP).  The program was entitled: Exploring Life in the Southern Ocean and consisted of three 1.5 hour classes geared towards 5^th-8^th grade students – see https://4hset.rutgers.edu/online-learning/. Young people from across the state participated in this inaugural program led by the RUCOOL education team.
• To fill the gap of in person 4-H STEM learning due to COVID-19, the RUCOOL education team has joined a larger Rutgers group that has created a new 4-H STEM Blog to help kids connect to STEM activities from home: https://4hset.rutgers.edu/stem-blog/.

National

• Grace Saba presented an invited to Sea-Bird Scientific on the glider pH efforts and path forward for an industry-academic partnership. Grace runs the only two pH gliders in the world.
• The RUCOOL Education and Science teams lead the authoring of a special issue for the National Marine Educators Association Journal called Current – https://polar-ice.org/nmea_current/https://polar-ice.org/nmea_current/
• Hugh Roarty travelled to Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) Centers around the United States (Port of New York, Houston, Louisville and Port Arthur) to evaluate the Coast Guard use of HF radar to manage traffic in the ports. Existing microwave radars operated by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) do not provide reliable detection of small vessels.  Hugh will meet with Coast Guard personnel at the twelve MORE VTS centers and develop a needs analysis with respect to radar remote sensing.
• For the NASEM HF-Radar work in the Gulf of Mexico, RUCOOL is improving CODAR ship detection software. Tests are being performed by comparing data acquired near two oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and from the Sandy Hook NJ site, to the national Automated Identification System (AIS) ship tracking data.

International

• RU COOL scientists working on the NSF-funded Palmer LTER and Project SWARM connected with thousands of K-12 students this past winter in 10 live video teleconferences (VTCs) from Palmer Station, Antarctica. The education team recruited and prepared 25 teachers from 21 schools in 11 states (NJ, DE, NY, CT, VA, FL, AL, MN, AZ, OR, CA), reaching 1060 students directly and many more via the call recordings that are shared online.  The interaction helps build science identity as reported by teachers.
• Several members of the RUCOOL team attended the Ocean Sciences meeting in San Diego in late February, which is the world’s largest oceanography conference, delivering 20 presentations (many are available on our website). Grace Saba co-chaired the town hall on Exploration of the Twilight Zone Ocean Network (JETZON), which published a piece in Nature last week
• The RUCOOL team collected data for the last 30 years as part of the NSF funded Palmer Long Term Ecological Research program, that is conducting a long term study of how a changing climate will impact polar marine ecosystems along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). This year leadership of the Palmer LTER was transferred to Rutgers which is the principal institution running this multi-university long term effort.
• RUCOOL lead a team partnered with the University of Delaware, Oregon State University, Old Dominion University, Polar Oceans Research Group, and University of Alaska Fairbanks to deploy a polar ocean observatory off the coast of Antarctica. COVID-19 provided a challenge with travel logistics as scientists and students were scheduled to arrive home in late March. The entire team arrived home safely in late March, thanks to a great deal of help, cooperation and communication between gov’t agencies, airlines and universities. It’s good to have them back.

Student Awards

• Kasey Walsh, Grace Saba’s undergraduate student, received the Undergraduate Research Excellence Award from the Department of Marine & Coastal Sciences.

Newly Funded Research

• EDF Renewable 2020-2021, “Atlantic Shores Visibility Modeling Study” ($15,489), Joe Brodie.
• EDF Build 2020-2021, “RUMFS Atlantic Shores Lidar Deployment” ($68,885), Joe Brodie.
• Stevens Institute of Technology, Department of Homeland Security, “VTS Radar for Small Vessel Detection” ($192,473), Hugh Roarty.
• National Science Foundation 2020, “LTER Palmer, Antarctica (PAL): Land-Shelf-Ocean Connectivity, Ecosystem Resilience and Transformation in a Sea-Ice Influenced Pelagic Ecosystem”, ($1,134,426), Oscar Schofield.
• National Science Foundation 2020, “REU Site: Research Internships in Ocean Sciences (RIOS)”, ($498,502), Josh Kohut

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

• Martin, A., Boyd, P., Buesseler, K., Cetinic, I., Claustre, H., Giering, S., Henson, S., Irigoien, X., Kriest, I., Memery, L., Robinson, , Saba,G., Sanders, R., Siegel, D., Alfageme, M.V., Guidi, L. 2020. Study the twilight zone before it is too late. Nature 580: 26-28, DOI: 10.1038/d41586-020-00915-7
• Hunter-Thomson, K., Kohut, J., Saba, G.Empowering Students with Polar Science Through Real World Data. Current: The Journal of Marine Education 34(1): 13-18.
• Greengrove, C.,  Lichtenwalner, H. Palevsky, A. Pfeiffer-Herbert, S. Severmann, D. Soule, S. Murphy, L. Smith, and K. Yarincik (2020), Using Authentic Data from NSF’s Ocean Observatories Initiative in Undergraduate Teaching: An Invitation, Oceanography, 33(1), DOI:10.5670/oceanog.2020.103.
• Ferraro, C., Jordan, R., Kopp, R. E., Bond, S. L., Gong, J., Andrews, C. J., Auermuller, L. M., Herb, J., & McDonnell, J.(2020). Training Students to Improve Coastal Resilience. In A. Zimmerman (Ed.), Preparing Students for Community-Engaged Scholarship in Higher Education (pp. 347-360). Hershey, PA: IGI Global. DOI:10.4018/978-1-7998-2208-0.ch017
• McDonnell, J., Hotaling, L., Schofield, O., Kohut, J.(2020). Key concepts in polar science: Coming to consensus on the essential polar literacy principles. Currents: Journal of Marine Education. 34(1): 2-8
• McDonnell, J., Schofield, O., Bean, C.Bringing long-term ecological research (LTER) at Palmer Station Antarctica to your classroom. Currents: Journal of Marine Education. 34(1): 15-17

RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

AGU Ocean Sciences, San Diego, CA; Schmidt Foundation, San Diego, CA; IOOS Annual Meeting, Washington, DC; USCG Meetings at Port of New York, Houston, Louisville and Port Arthur, TX; Swam Research, Palmer Station, Antarctica; Rhode Island Parks Conference, Rhode Island; Tropical Cyclone Operations and Research Forum, Lakeland, FL.

RUCOOL Visitors

• Total number of visitors to RU COOL: 75 (Lab was shut down for tours on March 6 due to COVID-19)