INTEGRATED OCEAN TECHNOLOGY TEAM The RUCOOL Integrated Technology Team works with development and operations of state-of-the-art ocean sensor technologies and integrating their data products together to get the most comprehensive three dimensional view of the ocean possible. THE NEED FOR INTEGRATED RESEARCH The RUCOOL team performs research in every ocean on earth, from pole to pole, and studies the gamut ocean sciences including physics, biology, chemistry and geology. In order to acquire a comprehensive view of the complete ocean system, we leverage numerous technologies to acquire data to research events such as hurricanes, to long term climate change. 1+1+1=10! An example of the success of data integration is in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, where we integrate temperature and water visibility data from satellites, currents from HF-Radar, and subsurface data from ocean gliders. Putting these three technologies together gives us a 4 dimensional view of what is occurring within the ocean, and feeds ocean forecast models. Learn by doing: Our faculty and technicians work in state-of-the-art laboratories, on vessels, and in classrooms to give undergraduate and graduate students hands-on, experiential learning opportunities. TECHNOLOGIES & DATA Gliders HF-Radar Satellites Meteorological Stations TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES Publications RUCOOL Publications Presentations RUCOOL Presentations Blog Operations Blog

Scott Glenn and Travis Miles joined captain Jim Nickles of Monmouth University on the R/V Heidi Lynn Sculthorpe on July 22 and deployed two US Navy Slocum Gliders. These gliders are joining what will become a fleet of glider in the mid-Atlantic that will remain deployed throughout hurricane season. They will gather information about what is happening below the ocean surface that may either hinder or enhance the strength of an approaching tropical cyclone. Funding for this hurricane glider program was made available by the United States Navy, NOAA, IOOS, IFAA, OAR, AOML.

July 21st, 2020 The Mid-Atlantic 2020 Glider Season began last week with the launch of RU_33 off the coast of Tuckerton, NJ. This is the first of many Mid-Atlantic glider launches for the season. RU_33 was launched by Rutgers University and is part of a partnership that includes NOAA, the US Navy, US IOOS (including MARACOOS) and many academic partners to study atmospheric/ocean interactions during hurricane season. The 30 gliders launched this year as part of this partnership will provide data to help improve hurricane forecast models. Learn more about the NOAA Hurricane Glider Project. What is a glider? Gliders are powerful tools for gathering ocean data: they are unmanned, can be launched from almost any seagoing vessel, and can be outfitted with a variety of instruments to customize the glider to its mission. Because they require very little human assistance, gliders can be deployed and collect data during storm conditions. Click here to learn more about gliders. How do gliders work? Gliders gather measurements from the surface to half a mile deep, surfacing multiple times a day to transmit data. Those data travel via satellite to the U.S. IOOS Glider DAC, where they are made publicly available. From the DAC they are uploaded to the Global Telecommunications System and made available to forecasting models like those used by the National Weather Service. Glider data as well as thousands of other datasets can be found on the MARACOOS OceansMap. Stay tuned for more updates on Mid-Atlantic glider launches! Originally Posted at maracoos.org

Title: Collaborative Research:  Developing a profiling glider pH sensor for high resolution coastal ocean acidification monitoring  Funding Agency: NSF  Project Lead: Grace Saba, Travis Miles  Partners: Teledyne Webb, Waterlab  Period of Performance: 10/1/2016 – 9/30/2021  Total Budget: $882,647.00  Project Summary: Ocean acidification (OA) has significant scientific and societal ramifications including the alteration of ocean biogeochemistry, ecological consequences associated with altered ecosystems, and economic losses due to the decreased survival of commercially important organisms. Yet few time series and high resolution spatial and temporal measurements exist to track the existence and movement of low pH and low carbonate saturation (Ω) water, specifically in coastal regions where finfish, lobster, and wild stocks of shellfish are located. Past ocean acidification monitoring efforts (surface buoys with pH or   pCO2 sensors, flow-through pCO2 systems utilized by research vessels, water column sampling during large field campaigns) have either low spatial resolution (mooring) or high cost and low temporal and spatial resolution (research cruises). Therefore, there is a critical need to deploy new, cost-effective technologies that can routinely provide high resolution water column OA data on regional scales in our coastal ocean. Autonomous underwater profiling gliders have proven to be a robust technology that fulfills this role. A variety of sensors have successfully been mounted on Slocum gliders; however, no direct measurements of ocean pH have been collected by pH sensors mounted on these gliders. The PIs propose to: 1) modify and integrate a deep rated version of the Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor (ISFET)-based pH sensor, the Deep-Sea DuraFET pH sensor system, into a Slocum glider; 2) test the new sensor suite via three glider deployments to provide a rigorous “groundtruthing”; 3) deliver the OA data in real-time; and 4) examine pH/Ω dynamics on the commercially important U.S. Northeast Shelf. The proposed testing in 2018 will benefit with rigorous groundtruthing via coordination of the high resolution glider mapping of pH and Ω side-by-side with Cai’s NOAA OAP’s (Ocean Acidification Program) planned ECOA (East Coast Ocean Acidification) cruise II where a full suite of carbonate parameters (pCO2; pH; dissolved inorganic carbon, DIC; total alkalinity, TA; and oxygen, O2) will be measured either underway or on board ship. Intellectual Merit: The proposal will develop the integrated glider platform and sensor system for sampling pH and possibly Ω in the water column of the coastal ocean on a regional scale. The integration of simultaneous measurements from multiple sensors on one glider will allow one to distinguish interactions between the physics (temperature), chemistry (dissolved O2, salinity-based TA, and temperature-, salinity-, and O2-based DIC, Ω), and biology (fluorescence, backscatter) of the ecosystem. High spatial and temporal resolution in situ pH measurements and Ω estimations will be provided in habitats of commercially important fisheries in the U.S. Northeast Shelf where ocean pH/Ω information is most critically needed. Being able to monitor pH throughout the water column is critical in order to track the movement of low pH/Ω water, understand the variability of pH/Ω, and predict how mixing events and circulation will impact pH/Ω across the shelf. This capability will allow the PIs and others to identify habitats that are susceptible to periods of low pH/Ω and/or high temporal pH/Ω variability. Broader Impacts: This project will result in a new commercially available glider pH sensor suite that will provide the foundation of what could become a real-time national coastal OA monitoring network with the capability of serving a wide range of users including academic and government scientists, monitoring programs including those conducted by OOI, IOOS, NOAA and EPA, water quality managers, and commercial fishing companies. The data produced from this new technology will allow the community to identify high-risk regions and populations of commercially important species that are more prone to periods of reduced pH/Ω and ultimately will enable us to better manage essential habitats in the future, more acidic oceans. The open accessible, automated real-time data through RUCOOL (Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership), MARACOOS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System), and THREDDS (Thematic Real-time Environmental Data Distribution System) would provide a warning system that would assist scientists studying ecological processes, water quality managers and conservationists to monitor impacts, and commercial operators to implement adaptive strategies. Finally, data resulting from this newly developed technology and future applications can help build and improve ecosystem models, specifically the development of coastal forecast models with the capability to predict the variability and trajectory of the low pH water. This project will also provide support for two early career researchers,

Students from Brooklyn’s School for Human Rights visited the COOLroom and glider lab today. Discussions ranged from our current work at Palmer Station in Antarctica studying penguin populations, to more local research of offshore wind turbine planning, whale migration tracking and what’s happening just off the beaches of Brooklyn. We hope to see you again next year.

The technology used to observe ocean acidification – the shift in ocean chemistry driven by an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities – has followed the same trend of innovation and scaling as computer technology. Measuring ocean chemistry traditionally involves a team of scientists to collect samples at sea and an entire lab team to analytically determine the carbonate chemistry by measuring multiple parameters, including pH. While these methods are still being used, innovations in technology have made continuous pH sampling in our ocean possible. Dr. Grace Saba, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, has worked to develop a new sensor and is leading a project that will combine this new technology, existing data, and modeling to optimize the ocean acidification observing network in the Northeast US. Read more

Grace Saba, assistant professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences (DMCS), is the lead principal investigator  and John Wilkin, professor in DMCS, is co-principal investigator of $1,499,895 million project observing ocean acidification on the U.S. Northeast Shelf, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Gulf of Maine. The project, “Optimizing Ocean Acidification Observations for Model Parameterization in the Coupled Slope Water System of the U.S. Northeast Large Marine Ecosystem,” is funded by the NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program (OAP), which has teamed up with the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) to fund a total of four projects aimed at improving the observing system design for characterizing ocean acidification. The U.S. Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem supports some of the nation’s most economically valuable coastal fisheries, and most of this revenue comes from shellfish that are sensitive to ocean acidification. Additional co-PIs on the Rutgers-led project include Charles Flagg and Janet Nye, Stony Brook University; Joe Salisbury and Doug Vandemark, University of New Hampshire; Neal Pettigrew, University of Maine; Gerhard Kuska, Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System; and John R. Morrison, Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems. The three-year project runs from September 2019 to August 2022. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of eyes on our changing ocean at any moment: Buoys, gliders, saildrones and ships measure carbonate chemistry and new ocean observing technologies are continually being created to monitor ocean acidification. As science and technology progress it is important to ensure that the most up-to-date knowledge is applied to the task at hand. This work will evaluate the capability of existing observations to characterize the magnitude and extent of acidification and explore alternative regional ocean acidification observing approaches. Ultimately this work will minimize errors in measurements, better integrate existing observations, and minimize costs of monitoring ocean acidification. The research team, led by Saba, plans to add seasonal deployments of underwater gliders equipped with sensors, including newly developed pH sensors, to understand how the ocean chemistry in this region varies on seasonal timescales relevant to organism ecologies and life histories. They also plan to improve existing regional sampling with additional carbonate chemistry measurements on other platforms in several key locations, and compiling and integrating this new information with existing OA assets. The researchers will then apply these data to an existing ocean ecosystem/biogeochemical (BGC) model to explore how carbonate chemistry is changing on the Northeast Shelf. The model will then be used to test hypotheses focused on what drives ocean acidification and identify locations for long term monitoring. Original article