On December 5, representatives from Rutgers University of New Brunswick (USA) and the National Oceanography Center of Southampton (UK) visited the facilities of the Maritime Instrumentation Center at the Seixal Watershed. This visit aimed to explore the conditions existing at the Portuguese Hydrographic Institute for a partnership in the construction and operation of a glider laboratory. Full article here.

On November 15, 2019 – our two Masters in Operational Oceanography students, Joe Anarumo and Julia Engdahl, recovered two gliders, ru28 and ru33, with glider technician Dave Aragon and the NJDEP. Thanks to beautiful piloting by Dave and Nicole Waite, the gliders were recovered only 80 yards apart, 3 miles off the shore of Atlantic City, NJ. As per protocol, Joe and Julia conducted a CTD cast that will later help with quality control of the glider CTD data. Upon recovery of the gliders, there was biofouling on ru33. The little critters are referred to as gooseneck barnacles.

Two drifters from Pacific Gyre were deployed on Friday November 15, 2019. The drifters were deployed as part of a validation experiment for the surface current products that Rutgers produces. The drifters made several loops inside Raritan Bay then made landfall due to the northeast winds that struck the area over the weekend. The data from the drifter will be used to calibrate the MARACOOS High Frequency Radar Network.

Over the last week, our graduate students got some hands on field work in the mid-Atlantic. On October 25th, Jackie Veatch, Joe Anarumo and Julia Engdahl deployed RU28 for its NJDEP funded water quality testing mission along the NJ coast. This glider mission, deployed by the all-grad-student crew, can be tracked here: Gliders In addition, on November 1, Joe and Julia accompanied CODAR aficionado, Ethan Handel, on mission to upgrade the HF-Radar antenna at Sandy Hook, NJ. Our HF-Radar systems support numerous research projects, but are also used by the US Coast Guard to support Search and Rescue operations throughout the Mid Atlantic. More information about these systems can be found here: CODAR Thanks to Julia, Joe and Jackie for supporting a successful week of field operations!

About Josh Josh Kohut, PhD, MTS Fellow, graduated cum laude in 1997 with a B.S. in physics from the College of Charleston and earned his Ph.D. in physical oceanography from Rutgers University in 2002. Since then, he has been a central player in the Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership serving in several capacities including Technical Director and now as a member of the Faculty Leadership. Using networks of ocean observing technologies, his research and extension programs focus on the physical ocean processes that structure marine ecosystems. To accomplish this, Josh was an early adopter of HF Radar and underwater glider technologies, and has remained at the forefront of their development, operation and use for over two decades. Perhaps the most scientifically significant of Josh’s technology applications was the glider he deployed ahead of Hurricane Irene. Josh’s glider was used to identify the previously unrecognized rapid mixing and extreme cooling response of the coastal ocean that then fed back on Irene’s intensity. The discovery was published in Nature Communications and was fundamental to establishing the US Hurricane Glider Sentinel Program in 2018. Josh then adapted his Mid-Atlantic HF Radar and glider technologies to the extreme and remote environment in the coastal seas surrounding Antarctica. He and his students have documented how ocean fronts and eddies focus the food web and drive penguin foraging ecology. By deploying marine technology within an integrated polar observatory, he and his team are able to map and track the mechanisms that structure these polar ecosystems. MTS Experience Kohut has accumulated a decade-long record of consistent and prolific contributions to the Marine Technology Society. Since 2010, Josh has been an author on nine peer-reviewed publications in the MTS Journal, two of the articles as first author. The articles focus on the use of new ocean observing technologies for science and societal applications. In 2013, he volunteered as the faculty advisor to the Rutgers MTS student section, a position he still holds today. Through this advisory position, Josh inspired a significant increase in Rutgers student participation in technology development and research applications, activities that often culminated in posters and presentations at OCEANS conferences. Since 2014, Josh has been the co-author on 75 published OCEANS proceedings papers, 13 of which have two students’ that Josh advised as first author. Kohut has now started organizing state-wide meetings of the different MTS student sections across all the universities in New Jersey. The objective is to further broaden participation, expand the student’s network of contacts, and inspire multiple small groups of students to work together on projects that cross between universities. To expand beyond Rutgers and New Jersey, in 2017, he became the founding Director of the MTS Glider Technology Camp at Rutgers. The Camp transformed an existing glider training program and enhanced it to meet MTS standards. By setting up this Technology Camp, he became even more familiar with MTS education programs and their importance.

A drifter was released this past Tuesday as part of the Ocean Methods and Data Analysis course just west of Sandy Hook. The drifter was constructed by St. Hubert Catholic High School in Philadelphia, PA this past spring. You can track the progress of the drifter here. NOAA Drifter The drifter was provided to the school as part of the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center Drifter program. https://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/drifter/ The data from the drifter will be used to calibrate the MARACOOS High Frequency Radar Network. https://maracoos.org/hfradar.shtml Acknowledgments Thanks to Prof. Grace Saba and Nicole Waite for deploying the drifter. Thanks to Mr. Jeff Franks who led the construction and contacted Rutgers to be part of the deployment.

Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Stony Brook University deployed 6 gliders to monitor the Mid-Atlantic Bight’s fall transition from highly stratified to well-mixed ocean conditions.  Deployments began in late September and continued through Mid-October.  One glider is a shallow near-shore glider deployed to monitor water oxygen concentrations and the other 5 gliders are swimming cross-shelf lines from 15 – 200 meters.  Funding for this group of gliders was provided by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), the Mid Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Atmospheric Research (OAR), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC).  The specific goals of the deployments vary from improving weather and ocean forecasting, monitoring near-shore oxygen concentrations and ocean pH as well as additional physical, biological and chemical conditions in the Mid-Atlantic Bight.  Data from these gliders is being fed, in near real-time, to the IOOS Glider Data Assembly Center to help improve the models used to forecast hurricane tracks and intensities. Track the glider fleet’s progress here.