Rutgers University
  • RUCOOL Updates: December 2019 – January 2020

    Posted on April 27th, 2020 Mike Crowley No comments

    State

    • Our Operational Oceanography students presented their thesis proposals to the PIs in December and have begun thesis work. Second cohort student applications have arrived, doubling those from the first cohort.
    • The R/V Rutgers field season ended in November and the maintenance season began in December. There were no science cruises, but significant maintenance/repairs/additions have been completed supporting USCG inspections and preparing for the spring season ahead.
    • Carl Gouldman, Director of NOAA’s US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) visited RUCOOL to view final presentations from our undergraduate research class. Carl Goldman shared his career experiences with the students, while they presented talks on typhoons and hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific, research on climate in Antarctica, and local studies of the Raritan River.

    National

    • Janice McDonnell’s education team has and will continue to offer weekly video teleconferences for the Antarctic LTER program and Dr. Josh Kohut’s SWARM project. The virtual visits to our Antarctic summer researchers are reaching thousands of K-12 students during our winter.
    • The Ørsted ECO-PAM Marine Mammal project, a collaboration between Ørsted, RUCOOL, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the University of Rhode Island was formally announced. RUCOOL has ordered a new Slocum glider exclusively for the use of this project, with the first deployment anticipated this spring. This first beta project has the possibility of leading to a decade of glider whale tracking during wind turbine installations off NJ.
    • Grace Saba and graduate student Liza Wright-Fairbanks attended the Ocean Acidification Community Meeting in Miami, FL. Each presented aspects of their novel research using newly developed glider-based pH sensors to observe carbonate chemistry variability in dynamic coastal shelf systems. A recent article on Grace’s work is available at: https://rucool.marine.rutgers.edu/gliding-into-the-future-of-ocean-acidification-observing/
    • Josh Kohut and Joseph Brodie served as panelists for a discussion on international research in sustainability and climate change hosted by Rutgers Global.
    • The education team conducted three webinars for the Data Lab project (datalab.marine.rutgers.edu) including pedagogically focused programs by the project team, and webinars that were led by the previous workshop participants as we grow our core.
    • After offering a mini grant competition, the education team awarded 11 Data Lab Fellows to expand the use of NSF’s OOI data. You can learn more about the competition here: https://datalab.marine.rutgers.edu/2020-data-labs-fellows/
    • The RUCOOL Hurricane glider team was granted access to NOAA supercomputers this winter. Maria Aristizabal is now charged with evaluating the accuracy of the NOAA/NCEP operational and experimental hurricane forecasting models in estimating the ocean’s response to Hurricane Dorian using a fleet of underwater gliders deployed in the Caribbean Sea.
    • Scott Glenn, a member of the Environmental Information Services Working Group (EISWB), attended the EISWG annual meeting at the NOAA Storm Center in Norman Oklahoma (Univ. of OK). Scott presented a talk on the impacts of oceans on hurricane forecasts. He will now lead the EISWG review of the NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) submitted in response to the Weather Research and Forecast Innovation Act of 2017.
    • Scott Glenn and Mike Smith attended the Understanding Gulf Ocean System (UGOS) collaboration meeting at the National Academy of Sciences Engineering and Medicine headquarters in Washington, DC. Mike presented a poster on HF-Radar data quality control and data management.

    International

    • RUCOOL, the University of Delaware and University of Alaska Fairbanks have partnered on the Swarm project studying the ocean off the West Antarctic Peninsula. Swarm focuses on integrating multiple sensors and technologies to improve models of phytoplankton blooms, krill locations and maps of top predator locations off the West Antarctic Peninsula. Since December, Rutgers has and continues to operate 3 gliders and the only Antarctic HF-Radar station in support of this research.
    • Rutgers (Travis Miles) partnered with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Ifremer on a collaborative project focused on sampling particle fluxes and the dynamics of the Rhone River along the southern coast of France using an ocean glider.
    • Oscar Schofield served as Chief scientist for the 8 week 2020 expedition to Antarctica as part of the NSF funded Palmer Long Term Ecological Research program, which is conducting a long term study of how a changing climate will impact polar marine ecosystems along the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The WAP is the fastest warming winter location on Earth. RUCOOL has documented major changes in the food web which is being driven by a changing ocean. The changes have ranged from the base of the food web and declines in the penguin populations.
    • Hugh Roarty visited with Erick Fredj from Jerusalem College of Technology in Jerusalem, Israel in January.  They discussed the state of the art for measuring and quantifying oceanic surface transport in the Mid Atlantic Bight.  They plan on conducting an experiment this coming summer looking to measure ocean dispersion with drifters and HF-Radar.
    • RUCOOL attended the NOAA Korean Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Joint Program Agreement Meeting in Busan, South Korea to continue work on the typhoon Soulik data set and to plan for the next joint glider deployment during the 2020 typhoon season.

    Newly Funded Research

    • Orsted 2020-2021, “Marine Mammal Real Time Automated Detection and Oceanographic Sampling Project”, ($1,109,786), Brodie, (2 years of funding).
    • Department of Homeland Security (Stevens Institute of Technology) 2020, “VTS Radar for Small Vessel Detection”, ($192,473), Roarty (1 of 1).
    • University of Puerto Rico 2017-2021, “Advancing Coastal Intelligence in the US Caribbean”, ($67,656), Roarty (4 of 5).
    • National Science Foundation Infrastructure Capacity for Biology 2019-2020: “Expanding the biological/physical sampling at Rutgers Marine Field Station at Tuckerton”, ($149,679), Schofield, Able, Grothues, Kohut, Saba.
    • Vetelsen Foundation (2020), “Support for improving hurricane prediction in the Caribbean”, ($100,100) Glenn, Schofield, Miles, Kohut, and Saba.

    Faculty Awards

    • Travis Miles received the RBR2020 Cohort Award. This award is open to early-career researchers and will bring together scientists from around the world to enable innovative ocean measurements through collaborative workshops, technical developments, demonstration programs, and SciComm mentorship.

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

    • Hudson, K., Oliver, M.J., Bernaerd, K., Cimino, M., Fraser, W., Kohut, J., Statscewich, H., and Winsor, P. 2019. Reevaluating the canyon hypothesis in a biological hotspot in the Western Antarctic Peninsula. Geophys. Res. Oceans. doi: 10.1029/2019JC015195.

    RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

    Meetings during this two month reporting period included: Dupont Nature Center HF-Radar Meeting, Milford DE; MarineRTech Meeting, Lisbon; Ocean Best Practices Meeting, Brussels; Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology Meeting, Busan; American Meteorological Society Meeting, Boston; OOI Data Labs Workshop (moderators), Princeton; Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem; Environmental Information Services Working Group Meeting, Norman OK; Understanding Gulf Ocean Systems Meeting, Washington DC.

    RUCOOL Visitors

    • Total number of visitors to RU COOL: 58
  • RUCOOL Update for October-November 2019

    Posted on December 18th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    State

    • Grace Saba conducted the first Delaware Bay field effort designed to observe zooplankton ingestion of microplastics and the effect on fecal pellet sinking rates. Experiments were conducted at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory.
    • Masters students attended the Urban Coast Institute’s Future of the Ocean Symposium where they met and learned from leaders in operational oceanography including the deputy administrator of NOAA, the president of Conservation Law Foundation, the deputy director of the Port Authority of NY & NJ, and the president of Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind.
    • In addition to participating in three glider deployments (one entirely student led) and an HF radar installation, students have been building their own ocean instruments (CTD) from scratch.
    • The R/V Rutgers completed 15 trips, hosting 150 passengers during October and November. These trips included support of glider deployments and recoveries, completing multiple experiments on marsh restoration and water quality, supporting seven undergraduate classes, and outreach cruises with citizen scientists and SEED (Students for Environmental and Energy Development).

    National

    • With the exception of RU26 currently deployed off the coast of California, the 2019 underwater glider season was completed in November. During October and November, RUCOOL was involved with seven glider deployments and nine glider recoveries, taking our total glider deployments to over 500. These deployments include work supporting NOAA funded hurricane research, a MARACOOS Cold Pool study, NJDEP water quality research along the NJ coast, NASA investigations along the California coast validating data from a new sea surface height satellite, an NSF funded pH study in the Mid Atlantic, Vetelsen funded investigations of hurricane interactions with the ocean surface in the Caribbean, and piloting support of the first glider at Stony Brook funded by an NYDEC project.  It was a busy ending to a busy year, but next year we could see a 20-40% increase in glider work. Stay tuned!
    • RUCOOL attended the Coastal Ocean Modeling Testbed Meeting hosted by IOOS where Travis Miles presented on in situ measurements and data assimilation impacts on tropical cyclone forecasts. RUCOOL continues to be the national leader in improving both the ocean observation and modeling systems for hurricane research.
    • RUCOOL continues to work directly with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Maria Aristizabal is working with the hurricane forecasting group to evaluate the ocean-initial conditions in the operational and experimental NWS hurricane forecasting system using the data from the glider fleet that was deployed around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands this summer and fall. It has become clear that glider data assimilation has a significant impact on improving the accuracy of the initial conditions.
    • Hugh Roarty led sessions at the WTRIM (Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation) meeting with federal partners (Dept of Defense, Energy, FAA, BOEM and NOAA) that focused on how to secure funding for mitigation of interference from offshore wind turbines on the mid-Atlantic HFR network.
    • The education team hosted four Ocean Data Labs Webinars (datalab.marine.rutgers.edu) geared for community college professors. Topics included designing effective learning experiences, designing lessons based around data, and training on why salinity changes and what causes anoxic events.  Additionally, the team completed a six minute movie entitled “Data as a Tool in Scientific Investigations”, which will be available publicly in December, but you can view it here.

    International

    • Josh Kohut visited PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) and Puertos del Estado in Spain to assist with annual glider training, focused on the end user applications and science. This international collaboration focused on ocean education continues into its second decade.
    • Scott Glenn visited Palmer Station to install the only HF-Radar network in Antarctica, funded through the NSF. The project studies the foraging ecology of polar marine food webs and their connection to the ocean. The core research will occur January-March of 2020.
    • Oscar Schofield traveled to Barbados as he was invited to provide overviews on new ocean technologies for Hurricane forecasting to the Weather Prediction Ministers from the islands of the southern Caribbean. The meeting was organized by the Varysian group.
    • Oscar Schofield was invited to give two talks at Oceanology International. The first presentation was about the United States Integrated Ocean Observing System and a second was on evolving sensor technology for underwater autonomous robots.  During that visit he gave a third invited talk at the State Key Research Laboratory in Shanghai.
    • Members of the RUCOOL team attended the Marine Technology Society Meeting in Seattle, WA. The team chaired technical sessions, presented multiple talks on RUCOOL research, but more importantly had several focused meetings that are expected to lead to future research partnerships, collaboration with private companies on new sensor testing, and discussion with numerous potential future graduate students.

    Fall Semester Classes

    • Undergraduate: Freshmen Oceanography House (Glenn, Kohut, Schofield); Ocean Observatories Research (Glenn, Kohut, Schofield); Oceanographic Methods and Data Analysis: Biology/Chemistry (Saba); The Biology of Living in the Ocean: Water Column, Ecosystems & Processes (Saba).
    • Graduate: Integrated Ocean Observing 1 (Beaird); Field Laboratory Methods 1 (Beaird); Operational Ocean Modeling/Visualization 1 (Miles, Beaird); Integrated Ocean Observing – Software Bootcamp (Beaird).

    Student Awards

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

    • Julia N. Kobelt, William C. Sharp, Travis N. Miles, Colette J. Feehan (2019). Localized Impacts of Hurricane Irma on Diadema antillarum & Coral Reef Community Structure. Estuaries and Coasts. DOI:10.1007/s12237-019-00665-4.
    • Saba, G.K., Wright-Fairbanks, E., Chen, B., Cai, W.-J., Barnard, A.H., Jones, C.P., Branham, C.W., Wang, K., Miles, T. The development and validation of a profiling glider Deep ISFET pH sensor for high resolution coastal ocean acidification monitoring. Frontiers in Marine Science 6: 664, DOI:10.3389/fmars.2019.00664.

    RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

    Meetings during this two month reporting period included: Coastal Ocean Modeling Testbed Meeting, Silver Spring, MD; American Wind Energy Association Meeting, Boston, MA; MARACOOS Annual Board Meeting, Baltimore, MD; Marine Technology Society Meeting, Seattle, WA; Wind Turbine Radar Interference Meeting, Travis Air Force Base, CA; National Centers for Environmental Prediction, College Park, MD; NJ Board of Public Utilities Meeting, Trenton, NJ; Oceanology International, Shanghai, China; Polar-ICE Polar Literacy Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ; IEEE Ocean Engineering Society, Seattle, WA; Weather Prediction Ministers of the Caribbean, Barbados; MARACOOS Strategic Planning Meeting, Lewes, DE; Monmouth University Regional Awards, West Long Branch, NJ; National Geoscience Education Meeting, Carlton College, Northfield, MN; Glider Training School, Canary Islands, Spain; Offshore Wind Transmission Workshop, Trenton, NJ; Polar CAP Kickoff meeting, New Brunswick, NJ.

  • Navy Gliders View the Cold Pool

    Posted on October 25th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    Two Navy gliders were deployed in the Middle Atlantic Bight (MAB) between September 11 & 26, 2019. Their cross-shore trajectories were planned to capture the cold pool, a cold bottom layer of water that characterizes the MAB at this time of the year. There transects are shown below.

    In the figures below, the top figure shows the cross-shore temperature transect for glider ng618. In this figure the cold pool can be identified as the bottom water with temperature less than 10 degrees Celsius. The cold pool has important implications for the fisheries of the region and it can become a “fire extinguisher” for tropical cyclones by lowering the sea surface temperature through vertical mixing during the passage of a storm.

    The bottom figure shows the same ng618 glider trajectory from the Global Ocean Forecasting System (GOFS 3.1) that is a global operational ocean model run by the US Navy. The comparison between glider observations and the GOFS model are remarkably good.

  • RUCOOL Updates August-September 2019

    Posted on October 18th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    Field Campaign & Science Updates

    State

    • Joseph Brodie served as a panelist at the third annual Time for Turbines Offshore Wind Conference, hosted by the Business Network for Offshore Wind and Jersey Renews. The panel addressed environmental concerns around offshore wind development, and included NJDEP Deputy Commissioner Debbie Mans as a panelist.
    • The RV Rutgers completed 12 cruises supporting 105 passengers. In addition to the cruises supporting DMCS research and glider deployments, these voyages included multiple undergrad classes that received training on plankton tows, water sampling/filtration, oxygen and chlorophyll measurements, and bacteria sampling.
    • The first fall semester of the new Master’s program in Integrated Ocean Observing is well underway. Students are engaged in the principles of ocean measurement, building their own sensors from scratch, and are getting hands-on experience with real-world operations with the COOL group including glider deployments, rescue planning, and side scan sonar observations
    • Masters students have and will continue to participate in national Marine Technology conferences and career networking events this fall.

    National

    • The RUCOOL Glider team was involved with five deployments in August and September. These deployments include work supporting NJDEP water quality research along the NJ coast, NASA research off of central California to validate a new sea surface height satellite, and NOAA and privately funded investigations of hurricane interactions with the ocean surface in the Mid-Atlantic Bight and Caribbean.
    • RUCOOL deployed two Navy gliders in partnership with the Navy, NOAA OAR, MARACOOS and Monmouth University. Within two weeks, both gliders called into the Navy pilots, indicating that there were leaks. RUCOOL scrambled vessels from NorthStar Marine to recover these gliders at 3am on Sunday, September 22, and at 2am on Sunday, September 29. Both were recovered approximately 100 nautical miles from shore, within 48 hours of the first notification of a problem. If not for the round-the-clock efforts of RUCOOL, these navy gliders would have been lost as the leaks were severe in both cases.
    • DMCS completed its work with the NSF funded REU program, RIOS. Students worked with mentors over a 10 week program that supported their research and provided weekly workshops that developed their career and research aptitude.  The program was coordinated by Josh Kohut, and additionally 3 other RUCOOL scientists directly mentored students, and two RUCOOL scientists supported the RIOS career workshop.  The summer program concluded in August with a science symposium in which the students shared their work and celebrated their research success.
    • RUCOOL hosted our fourth OOI Ocean Data Lab Professional Development Workshopin August at Western Washington University. Fifteen faculty from community colleges, primarily undergraduate institutions, and universities from Washington, Alaska, California, Oregon, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York joined us. Teachers learned how to use and develop their own educational resources from real-time an archived OOI data that they can take back to their classrooms reaching students who may not otherwise have any experience in ocean science. Workshop information is at the Data Labs Workshops
    • Grace Saba presented an invited talk at the Ocean Acidification Alliance meeting: Coast to Coast State Convening Regional Impacts of Ocean and Coastal Acidification and State-Led Efforts to Respond in Brooklyn, NY. As co-coordinator of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network, she will be involved in working toward ocean acidification action plans for Mid-Atlantic states, including New Jersey.

    International

    • Oscar Schofield lead the Principal Investigator meeting for the Palmer Long Term Ecosystem Research Program. This international program’s leadership is being transferred to Rutgers in Fall 2019.
    • RUCOOL attended the decadal OceanObs19 meeting in Honolulu. The OceanObs’19 conference was a community-driven conference that brings people from all over the planet together to communicate the decadal progress of ocean observing networks and to chart innovative solutions to society’s growing needs for ocean information. White papers, many of which were co-authored by RUCOOL, are available here: http://www.oceanobs19.net/community-white-papers/.
    • Oscar Schofield attended and presented at the Global Ocean Observing System General Regional Associations in Tokyo (August 5th– 8th 2019). He was representing the growing Southern Ocean Observing System.

    Faculty Awards

    • The Marine Technology Society made Josh Kohut an MTS Fellow based on outstanding contributions to the advancement of the Society’s objectives and who have distinguished themselves in their fields.

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

    • Filipa Carvalho**, Jessica N. Fitzsimmons, Nicole Couto**, Nicole Waite, Maxim Gorbunov, Josh Kohut, Matthew J. Oliver**, Robert M. Sherrell, Oscar Schofield. 2019. Testing the Canyon Hypothesis: Evaluating light and nutrient controls of phytoplankton growth in penguin foraging hotspots along the West Antarctic Peninsula. Limnology and Oceanography: 00, 1-16. DOI:10.1002/1no.11313Slesinger,
    • Cristina L. Archer, Joseph F. Brodie, and Sara A. Rauscher. Global warming will aggravate ozone pollution in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 58:1267–1278, 2019. DOI: 10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0263.1.

    RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

    Third Annual Time for Turbines Offshore Wind conference, Atlantic City, NJ; OceanObs19, Honolulu, Hawaii; Ocean Acidification Alliance, Brooklyn, NY; 4DVar Workshop, College Park, MD; Offshore Wind Big Data Workshop, Boston, MA; GOOS Meeting, Tokyo; OOI Data Lab Workshop, Bellingham, WA; LTER Planning Meeting; SWARM Science Workshop, Rutgers.

  • Low Surface Salinity During Tropical Storm Karen

    Posted on October 3rd, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    During Tropical Storm Karen, there were 10 gliders deployed in the Caribbean (below). On Sep 24, the eye Karen passed over Navy glider NG278, just south of St. Croix.

    There is a good agreement in the vertical structure of temperature between GOFS 3.1 and the glider temperature (below).

    The GOFS 3.1 model, however, has a surface fresh layer (barrier layer) that is not as sharp as the observations show. This barrier layer gets even fresher and shallower during Karen (below). At the moment we are investigating if this freshening can be attributed to increased precipitation during the storm. If this is the case, this can be a mechanism that reinforces stratification during a storm and inhibits vertical mixing. We would like to investigate how important this possible mechanism is in controlling the storm intensity.

    The freshening that happened during Karen (Sep 23 – Sep 24) is not initially captured by any of the models (below).

    By Sep 26, the surface salinity in GOFS and Copernicus were much closer to the observations (both models assimilate data) but RTOFS still lags behind (below).

    Images of these daily comparisons, since the inception of the 2019 hurricane season, are available here.

  • There are a lot of gliders out there!

    Posted on October 1st, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    The 2019 hurricane season is in full swing in the Atlantic Ocean. Since the inception of the hurricane season on June 1, 42 ocean gliders have been deployed in the western Atlantic ocean by numerous academic, corporate and government partners. These gliders have acquired over 68,000 profiles of temperature and salinity to date. Some gliders also record data on water optics, oxygen, current speeds, pH, and wave heights. A distribution of the groups funding the deployments is shown below as well as a map of their locations.

  • Salinity Adjustment Ahead of Hurricane Dorian

    Posted on September 27th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    Accurate ocean initial conditions in numerical models are necessary to improve hurricane intensity forecasts (see article). One way to improve the initial conditions in operational ocean models is to use data assimilation, a technique that allows a numerical model to ingest observational data to nudge the model predictions closer to reality. The goal of the comparisons is to evaluate how data assimilation is impacting the model performance and ultimately how ocean processes affect storm intensity. Images of these daily comparisons, since the inception of the 2019 hurricane season, are available here.

    For the daily comparisons we use three operational ocean models: Global Ocean Forecasting System (GOFS 3.1, Navy), Real Time Ocean Forecasting System (RTOFS, NOAA) and the operational Mercator global ocean analysis and forecast system (Copernicus).

    During Hurricane Dorian there were a total of seven gliders deployed in the Caribbean reporting to the IOOS glider data assembly center (IOOS Glider DAC). Once the gliders start reporting data to the IOOS glider DAC, the data is sent to the Global Telecommunication System (GTS) where it can be assimilated by ocean models.

    On August 29, Tropical Storm Dorian passed over three gliders: SG665, SG666 and SG668 (Figure 1).

    Figures 2a-2d below highlight the comparisons of the models to glider SG665. In general, the operational ocean models capture the temperature structure in the Caribbean (Fig. 2a and 2b), however, in this example, the models tend to underestimate salinity at the surface and subsurface salinity maximum around 200 meters in this area. The assimilation of glider data into operational ocean models plays a very important role in correcting the subsurface and surface salinity structure. An example of this correction is highlighted in figures c and d. GOFS 3.1 (red line) is shown in figure c on the first full day of the glider deployment. Figure d shows a shift of 0.4 psu after a week of assimilation, pushing GOFS 3.1 much closer to the reality of the salinity structure.

  • International Challenger RU29 Mission Update

    Posted on September 12th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    RU29 is tuning up to measure currents: RU29 spent the day profiling in about 1000 m depths off Virgin Gorda, with operators tweaking settings on the onboard Doppler current velocity profiler to optimize its ability to measure ocean currents. An important aspect of the mission will be measuring speed and direction of currents below the surface to determine the movement of the water masses distinguished by their temperature and salinity characteristics.

    Currents in the region can be strong and have complex patterns. The figure below shows the modeled (US Navy AMSEAS model) currents in the region for 11 September, 2019. RU29 is in an area of northward surface currents greater than 1 knot. Ocean gliders themselves are only capable of forward speeds of around 0.5 knots, and only when they are ascending or descending. In order to make headway, they depend on spending most of their time well below the surface, where the currents are generally slower. If necessary, the glider does have a small electric motor and propeller which it can use, but at the cost of tapping into its limited battery reserves.

    RU29 recent trackline and position on 11 September 2019. The glider should begin its trip across the Anegada Passage station line on 12 September.

    Modeled surface current vectors from the US Navy AMSEAS model from 2100 UTC, 11 September, 2019. From OCEANSMAP Caribbean.

    To see all of the current reports, you can view them here: http://ocovi.azurewebsites.net/resource/Ru29

    The International Challenger RU29 Mission is a collaboration among Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) Center for Ocean Observing Leadership, Ocean and Coastal Observing – Virgin Islands (OCOVI, an affiliate of the US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Caribbean Coastal and Ocean Observing System (CARICOOS)), and the University of the Virgin Islands. This mission will collect upper ocean data to improve hurricane forecasting models; study conditions in the Anegada Passage, an important region for NE Caribbean climate change; and build international cooperation for ocean observing and glider activities. The mission will work in the waters of the US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, and Anguilla, under international Marine Science Research permit . Funding for the project comes from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmosheric Adminstration through the IOOS, Rutgers University, and the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.

  • RUCOOL Updates June-July 2019

    Posted on August 18th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    Field Campaign & Science Updates

    State

    • RUCOOL hosted a workshop sponsored by NJBPU and MARACOOS that focused on the environmental impacts of offshore wind. Based on feedback from stakeholders, we focused our workshop theme on the Cold Pool, an important oceanographic feature unique to the waters off the New Jersey coast.   The workshop had representatives from federal and state government, wind developers, commercial and recreation fishers, and academic experts across the region.  Together the participants shared the latest science and identified specific research needs for the community as wind farms development moves forward throughout the Mid-Atlantic Bight.
    • RUCOOL faculty continue to interact with the state on the ongoing effort to stand up a Wind Institute. Josh Kohut drafted a proposed plan for the formation of a Wind Institute that was co-authored by partners at Monmouth University and Stockton University, which was shared with Governor Murphy’s office.
    • RUCOOL deployed glider RU28 in July for NJDEP coastal water quality research. The glider team also deployed the world’s first pH glider (RU30) in July for NSF. RUCOOL assisted with deploying and piloting StonyBrook1, the first Stony Brook University Glider. We expect to use the RV Rutgers to recover both RU30 and SB1 in mid-August.
    • The RV Rutgers was deployed on 11 cruises for 6 different PIs during June and July.
    • Seven DMCS students attended a new Integrated Ocean Observing software course. This course provides the data literacy foundation for the new Masters in Integrated Ocean Observing program beginning this fall.

    National

    • DMCS welcomed 13 undergraduate students from across the country to participate in our NSF funded REU program, RIOS. These students worked with mentors over a 10 week program that supported their research and provided weekly workshops that developed their career and research aptitude.  The program was coordinated by Josh Kohut, and additionally 3 other RUCOOL scientists directly mentored students, and two RUCOOL scientists supported the RIOS career workshop.  The summer program concluded with a science symposium in which the students shared their work and celebrated their research success.
    • RUCOOL hosted our second OOI Ocean Data Lab Professional Development Workshopin June at Rutgers, and our third in July at Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, CA. Twenty-one faculty from community colleges, primarily undergraduate institutions, and universities from Hawaii to Rhode Island and all points in between joined us at these two workshops. Teachers learned how to use and develop their own educational resources from real-time an archived OOI data that they can take back to their classrooms reaching students who may not otherwise have any experience in ocean science. Workshop information is at the Data Labs Workshops
    • RUCOOL hosted our firstOOI Data Mini-Workshop at the July Earth Educators’ Rendezvous in Nashville, TN, where over 30 faculty learned about the OOI, data literacy, the learning cycle, and the collection of interactive data widgets being developed by our community members.
    • NOAA EMC Meeting DC July 19 – RUCOOL attended a hurricane intensity forecast meetings with OAR, NOS and NWS, building the connection between Rutgers and GFDL in Princeton for development of the MOM6 model. This is the future ocean model for NOAA. NOAA has requested RUCOOL assistance with model data comparisons and assimilation.
    • Oscar Schofield co-Chaired the external review of the Naval Research Laboratories Battlespace Environmental Program at Stennis Center.

    International

    • Korea: Scott Glenn of RUCOOL, and Alan Leonardi, head of Ocean Exploration at NOAA, were invited to Korea to lead the conference on the “US Experts Invitational Seminar on Underwater Gliders and Deep Sea Explorations”. KIOST, the Korean Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, and NOAA sponsored this meeting.
    • Japan: Oscar Schofield attended and presented at the Global Ocean Observing System General Regional Associations in Tokyo (July 5th-July 8th 2019). He was representing the growing Southern Ocean Observing System.

     

    Student Awards

    • Sarah Murphy and Julia Engdahl, RUCOOL graduate students, were both awarded MTS tuition scholarships.

     

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

    • Slesinger, E., Andres, A., Young, R., Seibel, B., Saba, V., Phelan, B., Rosendale, J., Wieczorek, D., Saba, G. 2019. The effect of ocean warming on black sea bass (Centropristis striata) aerobic scope and hypoxia tolerance. PLoS ONE 14 (6): e0218390. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218390.
    • Brown, M. S., Munro, D. R., Feehan, C. J., Sweeney, C., Ducklow, H. W., Schofield, O. 2019. Enhanced oceanic CO2 uptake along the rapidly changing West Antarctic Peninsula. Nature Climate Change. DOI:10.1038/s41558-019-0552-3.
    • Louise Newman, Petra Heil , Rowan Trebilco, Katsuro Katsumata, Andrew Constable , Esmee van Wijk , Karen Assmann , Oscar Schofield, Elisabeth Sikes and 31 others. 2019. Delivering Sustained, Coordinated, and Integrated Observations of the Southern Ocean for Global Impact, Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00433.
    • Ricardo Domingues , Akira Kuwano-Yoshida , Patricia Chardon-Maldonado , Robert E. Todd , George Halliwell, Hyun-Sook Kim, I.-I. Lin, Travis Miles, Scott Glenn and 20 others. Ocean Observations in Support of Studies and Forecasts of Tropical and Extratropical Cyclones, Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00446.
    • Pierre Testor , Brad DeYoung , Daniel L. Rudnick , Scott Glenn, Nicholas Beaird , Travis Miles, Grace Saba, Josh Kohut and 81 additional authors. OceanGliders: a component of the integrated GOOS. 2019. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00422.
    • Jessica N. Cross , Jessie A. Turner , Sarah R. Cooley , Jan A. Newton , Kumiko Azetsu-Scott , R. Christopher Chambers, Grace Saba and 16 others. 2019. Building the Knowledge-to-Action Pipeline in North America: Connecting Ocean Acidification Research and Actionable Decision Support. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00356.
    • Hugh Roarty , Thomas Cook , Lisa Hazard, Doug George, Jack Harlan, Simone Cosoli , Lucy Wyatt, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul , Eric Terrill, Mark Otero, John Largier, Scott Glenn, and 21 other authors. 2019. The Global High Frequency Radar Network. Frontiers in Marine Science. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00164.

     

    RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

    RIOS at JCNEER, Tuckerton, NJ; Cold Pool Workshop, Tuckerton, NJ; RUCOOL Glider Camp, New Brunswick, NJ; 2nd OOI Ocean Data Lab Professional Development Workshop, New Brunswick, NJ; 3rd OOI Ocean Data Lab Professional Development Workshop, Pacific Grove, CA; OOI Data Mini-Workshop, Nashville, TN; NOAA EMC Meetings, Washington, DC; US Experts Invitational Seminar on Underwater Gliders and Deep Sea Explorations, Seoul, Korea; Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation Strategy Meeting, Travis AFB, CA; SWARM Glider Calibration Meeting, San Diego, CA; 4DVAR ROMS Assimilation Workshop, College Park, MD; NRL External Review, Stennis, MS.

     

    RUCOOL Visitors

    • Total number of visitors to RU COOL: 242
  • RUCOOL Updates April-May 2019

    Posted on June 15th, 2019 Mike Crowley No comments

    RUCOOL Updates: April – May 2019

    Field Campaign & Science Updates

    State

    • RUCOOL hosted a visit from the Fisheries Liaison with offshore wind developer Equinor to discuss our technical capabilities and possible future collaborations.
    • Several members of the RUCOOL team attended the Fourteenth Annual REI Energy Symposium on May 8. Scott Glenn gave a plenary presentation while several members of the team ran afternoon breakout sessions focused on real-time ocean data delivery through RUCOOL and MARACOOS.
    • RUCOOL attended the NJAES Board of Managers meeting and presented Rutgers activities in offshore wind. Our next step is to identify links between agriculture and marine capacities in NJAES.
    • With Executive SEBS leadership, RUCOOL met with the Wentworth family to develop a contaminant observing system spanning the Raritan to the deep sea. The Wentworths are supportive of helping fund this vision.
    • RUCOOL attended the American Wind Energy Association Meeting to present an overview of RUCOOL offshore wind projects.

    National

    • RUCOOL chaired and presented in a session on research partnerships, and as part of a briefing on NJ’s offshore wind strategic plan, at the Offshore Wind International Partnering Forum in NYC, April 8-10.
    • RUCOOL briefed NOAA leadership Craig McLean, the Assistant Administrator of OAR, and Nicole LeBoeuf, Acting Assistant Administrator of NOS, on hurricane research and the need for a dedicated hurricane glider fleet (April 22nd). Scott glenn and Gustavo Goni (NOAA/AOML) were tasked with designing the US hurricane glider fleet.
    • RUCOOL organized and chaired the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) Workshop in Baltimore, May 13. RUCOOL has assumed the leadership role on ocean acidification research and planning in the region.
    • Several members of RUCOOL attended, presented and led panels on hurricane research and wind energy development at the MARACOOS annual meeting in Baltimore, May 13-14.
    • Scott April 30 Craig McLean, Acting Chief Scientist at NOAA, visited RUCOOL to discuss the future planning of the hurricane glider fleet and speak at the undergraduate Ocean Observing class.
    • RUCOOL briefed the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor, HI on the impact of ocean glider observations on hurricane intensity forecast improvement April 10-11.
    • Oscar Schofield met with the Deputy Director of Polar Programs at NSF to discuss future of the Antarctic Ship fleet and need to automate sampling.

    International

    • RUCOOL hosted the first ever EGO/UG2 International Glider Meeting May 20-24. Over 130 researchers and glider operators from 17 countries attended the meeting. The presentations will soon be available through gliders.ioos.us.
    • Oscar Schofield attended the LTER Principal Investigator Annual Meeting in Puerto Rico, with a focus on developing an international time series network.
    • Scott Glenn and Craig McLean co-hosted the US Committee meeting for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to prepare the US delegation for the July General Assembly meeting at UNESCO in Paris.
    • Travis Miles was appointed as chair of the Marine Technology Society (MTS) Meteorology and Physical Oceanography Committee.
    • Scott Glenn’s presentation at IOCARIBE launched a follow on meeting scheduled for November in Mexico City to design the climate monitoring network for the Caribbean through-flow portion of the global conveyor belt.

     

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

    • Archer, C.L., Brodie, J.F., and Rauscher, S.A. 2019. Global warming will aggravate ozone pollution in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-18-0263.1.
    • Goldsmith, K.A., Lau, S., Poach, M.E., Sakowicz, G.P., Trice, T.M., Ono, R.C., Nye, J., Shadwick, E.H., St.Laurent, K.A., Saba, G.K. Scientific Considerations for Acidification Monitoring in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Region. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2019.04.023.
    • Saba, G.K., Goldsmith, K.A., Cooley, S.R., Grosse, D., Meseck, S.L., Miller, W., Phelan, B., Poach, M., Rheault, R., St. Laurent, K., Testa, J., Weis, J.S., Zimmerman, R. 2019. Recommended Priorities for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal and Ocean Acidification in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2019.04.022.
    • Roarty, H., T. Cook, L. Hazard, D. George, J. Harlan, S. Cosoli, L. Wyatt, E. Alvarez Fanjul, E. Terrill, M. Otero, J. Largier, S. Glenn, N. Ebuchi, B. Whitehouse, K. Bartlett, J. Mader, A. Rubio, L. Corgnati, C. Mantovani, A. Griffa, E. Reyes, P. Lorente, X. Flores-Vidal, K. J. Saavedra-Matta, P. Rogowski, S. Prukpitikul, S.-H. Lee, J.-W. Lai, C.-A. Guerin, J. Sanchez, B. Hansen and S. Grilli (2019). “The Global High Frequency Radar Network.” Frontiers in Marine Science 6(164).

     

    RUCOOL Meetings & Conferences

    Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System Annual Meeting: New Orleans. JTWC Tropical Cyclone Conference: Honolulu. Scott Glenn and Oscar Schofield attended meeting NOAA leadership in Washington DC on the need for a national hurricane glider network April 22. IOOS DMAC Annual meeting: Washington D.C. April 29-May 2. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Meeting: Washington D.C. May 1. National Ocean Partnership Program Meeting in Washington DC April 21-22. Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidification Network (MACAN) Workshop: Baltimore May 13. MARACOOS Board Meeting: Baltimore May 13. MARACOOS Annual Meeting Baltimore May 13-14. LTER Principal Investigator meeting May 14-16, NOAA Environmental Monitoring Center (NCEP), April 2. EGO/UG2 International Glider Meeting: hosted at Rutgers May 20-24. CARICOOS Annual Meeting, May 24.

     

    RUCOOL Visitors

    • Total number of visitors to RU COOL: 127
    • Selected VIP Visitors:

    Peter Seligman – Chairman Conservation International, Craig McLean – Acting Chief Scientist at NOAA, Douglas Webb – founder of Teledyne Webb Research (Slocum Glider), Benjamin LaCour – NOAA IOOS, Mark Bushnell – NOAA IOOS, Nick Rome – IOOC Program Manager Consortium for Ocean Leadership, Gustavo Goni – Division Director NOAA/AOML, Barbara Kirkpatrick – Executive Director GCOOS, Steven DiMarco – Texas A&M University, Victor Turpin – JCOMMOPS, Emma Heslop – IOC/UNESCO, Steve Drew – Equinor Fisheries Liaison, Pierre Testor – French National Center for Scientific Research.