This week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) approved the plan for a new study that will recommend weather research priorities for the next decade. The effort will be led by Brad Colman, director of weather strategy at the Climate Corporation, and Scott Glenn, an oceanography professor at Rutgers University. (Image Credit – Christiaan Patterson / OU CIMMS / NOAA National Severe Storms Lab) Full article at American Institute of Physics

The Biden administration is betting that green energy produced by new offshore wind farms will help slow climate change, but fishers and some scientists say there are too many uncertainties about how the massive structures will affect the ocean and its marine life. The first big test of how the push for wind energy might clash with ocean conservation will likely play out in Massachusetts waters. This week, Department of the Interior officials gave initial approval to the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project located about 15 miles south of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Once the massive wind turbines begin operating in 2023, the wind farm is expected to generate 800 megawatts of clean electricity. That’s enough to power 400,000 Massachusetts homes and businesses. Vineyard Wind will be the first big offshore wind farm on the East Coast, although smaller pilot projects are running off Block Island, Rhode Island, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Officials at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an office within the Department of the Interior, are reviewing another 12 commercial offshore wind projects between Maryland and Maine. If approved, those wind farms would generate 25 gigawatts of clean energy for the power-hungry Northeast, more than doubling all land-based wind power coming online in 2021. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for wind farms. When WIRED last covered this project, in 2019, it was expected to be completed by 2021. But the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management delayed the project’s approval to review the cumulative impact of US offshore wind farms, while the company itself pulled its application to choose a different kind of turbine. Once that application was resubmitted earlier this year, the bureau approved the final environmental impact statement in several weeks. The renewed push for offshore wind power is part of a Biden administration executive order issued in January to halt new oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters and replace them with clean energy. Nearly one quarter of all US greenhouse gas emissions come from oil and gas wells on federal leases, and the White House sees a big potential to cut those planet-warming emissions with offshore wind projects. But the project has gotten pushback from both environmental groups and local fishers, who say they won’t be able to navigate their boats around the 700-foot tall towers or dredge the seafloor for valuable scallops and surf clams without getting tangled in power cables. The cables are “an obstruction and a safety hazard, and they will block fishing access,” says Annie Hawkins, director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, an advocacy group representing the Northeast and New England commercial fishing industry. “The cables take up more space than the turbines and create more risks than the turbines themselves.” Hawkins says her group has been pushing federal regulators to force Vineyard Wind to make wider sea lanes through the wind farm, so fishing boats would have more room to operate. The current plan has the turbines spaced a mile apart. As part of the overall Department of the Interior environmental review of Vineyard Wind’s application, the US Coast Guard did not approve the idea of broader 4-mile lanes over concerns it could lead to crowding on the seas. During the decade the project has been under development, Vineyard Wind has shrunk its proposed footprint. Initially, the firm planned to use 100 turbines producing 8 megawatts each. But the technology has improved and turbines have grown bigger and more powerful. Earlier this year, Vineyard Wind switched to GE’s new Halaide-X 13-megawatt turbine, reducing the overall number called for in its plan to 62 turbines, according to company spokesman Andrew Doba. While the engineering problems of such a large project may seem daunting, trying to figure out what will happen to the surrounding ocean and its denizens is a bit murkier. The Northeast waters are fed by the powerful Gulf Stream current, which brings warm water and tropical species from the south, as well as swirling eddies and a bottom layer of colder water that protects many commercially valuable seafood species. While scientists can use computer models to predict how wind farms might interact with currents, tides, and other ocean circulation patterns, it’s much tougher to come up with real-world examples. The UK, Netherlands, Germany, and several Scandinavian countries have been building offshore platforms for the past 20 years, but the ocean circulation patterns in the North Sea, English Channel, and Baltic Sea are more influenced by up-and-down tidal currents than the Northeast US. On the other hand, the Northeast is more affected by the Gulf Stream current and big storms like hurricanes and nor’easters that churn up the water below. Travis Miles, assistant professor of coastal and marine sciences at Rutgers University, says more ocean-based observations are needed to figure out how a wind farm might change circulation patterns—and those effects might vary along the Eastern seaboard. “The potential impacts might be different from New Jersey to Massachusetts,” he says. Miles and colleagues at Rutgers recently reviewed existing scientific literature on the biological and physical changes that might occur with offshore wind development to a undersea phenomena called the “cold pool,” a blob of cool water that sits on the ocean floor during the summer months and acts as a refuge for scallops, clams, and bottom-dwelling fish like flounder, monkfish, and sea bass. These organisms rely on the cold pool to protect themselves from the warm surface waters heated by the summer sun. There is some speculation that the currents flowing around wind farms could turn into a giant eggbeater, mixing warm surface water into the cold pool, but that hasn’t been shown in any direct field observations, Miles says. “If you put structures out there, there is potential for mixing,” Miles says. “One of our research questions is, does an array of structures have the potential to increase ocean mixing? We don’t know the answer to that.” Another unknown is whether turbine blades will slow down the winds that blow across

By John Dos Passos Coggin This article continues Climate.gov’s series of interviews with current and former fellows in the NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Program about the nature of their research funded by NOAA and what career and education highlights preceded and followed it. Over the past 30 years, the Postdoctoral Program, funded by NOAA Climate Program Office, has hosted over 200 fellows. The Program’s purpose is to help create and train the next generation of researchers in climate science. Appointed fellows are hosted by mentoring scientists at U.S. universities and research institutions. Our interview is with Rebecca Jackson, a former NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow (2016-2018) and current assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences. Her research explores the interaction between the ocean and cryosphere. She is a physical oceanographer interested in ocean-glacier interaction, coastal dynamics, and polar processes. She investigates submarine melting of glaciers in Greenland and Alaska, and the effect of glacial meltwater on ocean circulation. Read the interview at Climate.gov.

The Biden administration is betting that green energy produced by new offshore wind farms will help slow climate change, but fishers and some scientists say there are too many uncertainties about how the massive structures will affect the ocean and its marine life. The first big test of how the push for wind energy might clash with ocean conservation will likely play out in Massachusetts waters. This week, Department of the Interior officials gave initial approval to the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project located about 15 miles south of the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Once the massive wind turbines begin operating in 2023, the wind farm is expected to generate 800 megawatts of clean electricity. That’s enough to power 400,000 Massachusetts homes and businesses. Vineyard Wind will be the first big offshore wind farm on the East Coast, although smaller pilot projects are running off Block Island, Rhode Island, and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Officials at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an office within the Department of the Interior, are reviewing another 12 commercial offshore wind projects between Maryland and Maine. If approved, those wind farms would generate 25 gigawatts of clean energy for the power-hungry Northeast, more than doubling all land-based wind power coming online in 2021. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for wind farms. When WIRED last covered this project, in 2019, it was expected to be completed by 2021. But the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management delayed the project’s approval to review the cumulative impact of US offshore wind farms, while the company itself pulled its application to choose a different kind of turbine. Once that application was resubmitted earlier this year, the bureau approved the final environmental impact statement in several weeks. The renewed push for offshore wind power is part of a Biden administration executive order issued in January to halt new oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore waters and replace them with clean energy. Nearly one quarter of all US greenhouse gas emissions come from oil and gas wells on federal leases, and the White House sees a big potential to cut those planet-warming emissions with offshore wind projects. But the project has gotten pushback from both environmental groups and local fishers, who say they won’t be able to navigate their boats around the 700-foot tall towers or dredge the seafloor for valuable scallops and surf clams without getting tangled in power cables. The cables are “an obstruction and a safety hazard, and they will block fishing access,” says Annie Hawkins, director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, an advocacy group representing the Northeast and New England commercial fishing industry. “The cables take up more space than the turbines and create more risks than the turbines themselves.” Hawkins says her group has been pushing federal regulators to force Vineyard Wind to make wider sea lanes through the wind farm, so fishing boats would have more room to operate. The current plan has the turbines spaced a mile apart. As part of the overall Department of the Interior environmental review of Vineyard Wind’s application, the US Coast Guard did not approve the idea of broader 4-mile lanes over concerns it could lead to crowding on the seas. During the decade the project has been under development, Vineyard Wind has shrunk its proposed footprint. Initially, the firm planned to use 100 turbines producing 8 megawatts each. But the technology has improved and turbines have grown bigger and more powerful. Earlier this year, Vineyard Wind switched to GE’s new Halaide-X 13-megawatt turbine, reducing the overall number called for in its plan to 62 turbines, according to company spokesman Andrew Doba. While the engineering problems of such a large project may seem daunting, trying to figure out what will happen to the surrounding ocean and its denizens is a bit murkier. The Northeast waters are fed by the powerful Gulf Stream current, which brings warm water and tropical species from the south, as well as swirling eddies and a bottom layer of colder water that protects many commercially valuable seafood species. While scientists can use computer models to predict how wind farms might interact with currents, tides, and other ocean circulation patterns, it’s much tougher to come up with real-world examples. The UK, Netherlands, Germany, and several Scandinavian countries have been building offshore platforms for the past 20 years, but the ocean circulation patterns in the North Sea, English Channel, and Baltic Sea are more influenced by up-and-down tidal currents than the Northeast US. On the other hand, the Northeast is more affected by the Gulf Stream current and big storms like hurricanes and nor’easters that churn up the water below. Travis Miles, assistant professor of coastal and marine sciences at Rutgers University, says more ocean-based observations are needed to figure out how a wind farm might change circulation patterns—and those effects might vary along the Eastern seaboard. “The potential impacts might be different from New Jersey to Massachusetts,” he says. Miles and colleagues at Rutgers recently reviewed existing scientific literature on the biological and physical changes that might occur with offshore wind development to a undersea phenomena called the “cold pool,” a blob of cool water that sits on the ocean floor during the summer months and acts as a refuge for scallops, clams, and bottom-dwelling fish like flounder, monkfish, and sea bass. These organisms rely on the cold pool to protect themselves from the warm surface waters heated by the summer sun. There is some speculation that the currents flowing around wind farms could turn into a giant eggbeater, mixing warm surface water into the cold pool, but that hasn’t been shown in any direct field observations, Miles says. “If you put structures out there, there is potential for mixing,” Miles says. “One of our research questions is, does an array of structures have the potential to increase ocean mixing? We don’t know the answer to that.” Another unknown is whether turbine blades will slow down the winds that blow across

Assistant Professor Grace Saba discusses the value of the Slocum ocean glider and pH sensor technology in the study of ocean acidification. Links to the full article and video of an interview with Grace by Marine Technology Magazine are below. Marine Technology Video Interview with Grace on her pH Glider work Marine Technology Magazine article on Grace’s pH glider research

Rutgers scientists for the first time have pinpointed the sizes of microplastics from a highly urbanized estuarine and coastal system with numerous sources of fresh water, including the Hudson River and Raritan River. Their study of tiny pieces of plastic in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary in New Jersey and New York indicates that stormwater could be an important source of the plastic pollution that plagues oceans, bays, rivers and other waters and threatens aquatic and other life. “Stormwater, an understudied pathway for microplastics to enter waterways, had similar or higher concentrations of plastics compared with effluent from wastewater sewage treatment plants,” said senior author Nicole Fahrenfeld, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. “More research is needed to increase understanding of the full impact of microplastics on ecosystems.” Full article at Rutgers Today

For K-12 students, the discussion of climate change could result in eco-anxiety, including a fear about the current and future impacts of a changing Earth. In this video, Carrie Ferraro (RUCOOL and Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences) and Patricia Findlay (Rutgers’ School of Social Work) talk to Steve Abudato on their recent collaboration to help educators identify and support students’ emotional responses to climate change and the realities they face without sacrificing the science.