Salvatore Fricano is helping plan for the first worldwide navigation of a new underwater ocean glider Salvatore Fricano grew up spending summers on the Jersey Shore, where the vastness of the ocean captivated his imagination. “I just saw the horizon with nothing on it and it looked like an adventure waiting to happen,” he says. “I was interested in exploring it more than anything.” Arriving at Rutgers, Fricano delved into the study of the ocean and its impact on the world during the second week of his first year. He had just finished his third “Introduction to Oceanography” class when he asked his professor, the late Gary Taghon, whether hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico affect temperatures in Western Europe. Impressed with the question, Taghon asked him to walk to the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences building, where Fricano met two technicians who were scheduled to set sail the next morning and recover one of Rutgers’ autonomous underwater ocean gliders, which collect observational data about the ocean and serve as a critical tool in the monitoring and forecasting of storms. Full article at Rutgers Today

MS of Operational Oceanography (MOO) students recently visited Furuno USA Inc. in Denton, MD to learn about Furuno’s diverse marine radar technologies and their applications. The visit was hosted by Gil Passwaters of Furuno, who provided an informative tour of the facility. During the tour, Gil detailed the company’s mission and history, as well as the various operational capabilities of their radar and GPS, and the software utilized for processing the radar data. The MOO students, as well as everyone at RUCOOL, express their gratitude to Gil and Furuno USA Inc for the valuable opportunity to engage and gain insights into their field.

MS of Operational Oceanography (MOO) Students trained over a 3-day workshop led by SEABER’s Quentin Tatibouet, testing RUCOOL’s new AUV the YUCO-SCAN. This new AUV is equipped with side-scan sonar, allowing our students to set out on the R/V Rutgers out of the Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) with Capt. Chip Haldeman. Quentin explained the comprehensive and flexible accompanying software, and all of the MOO students found the YUCO easy to work with and fun to use. Coordinating a flexible mission, Quentin & and the MOO students scanned a shipwreck outside Great Bay, NJ. Everyone at RUCOOL, especially the MOO students, is looking forward to the next mission – thanks Quentin & SEABER!

RUCOOL’s Julia Engdahl has won multiple awards for her work last year at NOAA. She won two Director’s Team Awards from NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS). These awards were for work on automating quality control on NOAA’s Physical Oceanographic Real-Time Data System (PORTS) current meter data and for providing vital verified water level data, new API data services, and new and updated sea level projections and scenarios products in support of the 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report. Julia also won a NOAA CO-OPS Directors award for her individual work in developing innovative solutions and creative problem solving through programming and code improvements, resulting in more flexible and efficient operational processes related to NOAA’s derived product suite in CO-OPS. Julia was a critical part of two innovation projects over the past year; one to develop a PORTS Currents Analysis Tool (CAT) and the other to automate and otherwise make more efficient the routine processes that are required when transitioning microwave water level technology into operations. Julia is an  is currently working with RUCOOL focused on an array of projects including glider data analysis during hurricanes with support from NOAA IOOS and OAR and integrating onboard processing onto Slocum gliders with support from the Office of Naval Research. Congrats Julia!!

This week the Integrated Ocean Observing class learned how RUCOOL is utilizing unoccupied aerial systems (UAS) or commonly known as drones.  The students heard a lecture from Rutgers researcher Dr. Hugh Roarty on how we use drones for the calibration of our HF radar network and in STEM education.  The students got a chance to pilot a drone for a flight over Skelly field on the Cook Campus. The class also welcomed Dr. Michael Stresser as a guest lecturer on the application of UAS for remote sensing.  Dr. Streser is from the Institute of Coastal Ocean Dynamics which is part of the Helmholtz Association which is a union of 18 scientific-technical and biological-medical research centers in Germany.  Dr. Stresser provided an introduction to his research group’s focus and how they are utilizing unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the remote sensing of surface currents.  The technology they have developed is named CopterCurrents and provides surface water velocity from UAS video.  A further explanation of the technology can be found here.

New students Leslie Birch, Emily Busch, Bre DiRenzi, Rhyan Grech, Yachen Li, and Jake Zappala worked together to ensure the successful deployment and recovery of RU23. The students prepared and deployed the glider on October 11th. For 3 weeks, the students piloted the glider on their own mission: to transect along the Endurance Line and back, and to learn while doing so. Earlier this week, the students successfully recovered RU23 alongside Captain Chip Haldeman aboard the R/V Resilience. Glider RU23, once famous for its service during Superstorm Sandy in 2012, had settled into retirement nearly 7 years ago. Seeing a clear learning opportunity, the students worked alongside the RU COOL glider team in restoring and preparing the glider for another mission. The students split in teams, half on the water for deployment and half in the COOL room for piloting. The MOO cohort deployed the glider with bated breath, despite the potential risk of a leak due to the RU23’s age. With guidance from the RU COOL glider team, the students piloted the glider, adjusting the mission trajectory around storms, ship traffic, and ocean currents. RU23 and the students managed to locate the strong signal of the Mid-Atlantic cold pool in an otherwise well-mixed shelf before turning the glider around and heading it back to Tuckerton, NJ. With the glider now safely home after a successful mission, the students have begun the cleaning and readying of the glider for another round in the winter or spring. The experiential nature of this deployment, from mission conception through deployment, from piloting to recovery, and with data analyses ongoing throughout, is unique to the Rutgers Master’s of Operational Oceanography program. By providing opportunities to learn not just the science but the technologies used to collect that science, and to be part of a real-time ocean observing team, the graduates of the program leave with the skills to be highly competitive in any research or industry career.

Congratulate Tim Stolarz who successfully defended his master’s thesis this afternoon.  His thesis was titled “”Understanding Ocean Highways: Trends in Surface Currents and Divergence in Urbanized Coastal Margins For a Predictable Ocean” He delivered an excellent presentation during which he was asked aspect of the masters did he enjoy the most, the field work, science discovery, data analysis? His response was ‘ Definitely the conversations!’  A testament to creative teams working together to solve big issues.  Great Job Tim!!!