Roy Moffitt – Page 2 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

August 19, 2018August 19, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Life on a LEGO, August 14-15, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 14-15, 2018

Current location/conditions:

Evening August 15 – North- Northwest of Wainwright, Alaska

Air temp 35F, sea depth 47m , surface sea water temp 32.2F

Life on a LEGO

The LEGO is a nickname given to the large green plastic pallet-like mooring. Their retrieval from the sea floor is pictured here. This equipment was retrieved after being deployed for a year on the sea floor in about 40 meters of water. The mooring is called a DAFT (Direction Acoustic Fish Tracker). On the DAFT there are instruments that measure ocean temperature, salinity, and pressure. The primary instrument is an echo sounder that records any schools of fish that may pass overhead.

Lego Retrieval — Retrieval of the “Lego,” a large plastic mooring that has spent the past year collecting data at the ocean bottom

What the DAFT was not designed to do, but does well, is catch sea life. The fiberglass pallet has 1 1/2″ square holes in it that allow water to pass through on retrieval and it also catches sea life as if it were a net. Yesterday we pulled two of these “Legos” from the sea and they were covered with marine life. The most remarkable sight were the large blue king crabs, (around half dozen on one pallet). Here I am holding one of the bigger ones– such awesome looking creatures!

Roy and crab — TAS Roy Moffitt holding a blue king crab

On the smaller size, we found a hermit crab (shown here hiding in a shell).

Also on board were many sea stars. Most were the Brittle Stars. This is the picture of the sea star with the small legs. I think they are called the Brittle Stars because when I tried to gently remove them from the mooring, sadly their legs kept breaking off. There were dozens of these on the mooring.

There was another sea star with nine legs. It was very pretty and looks like a drawing of the sun. Not surprising, I found out this one is called the “Sun Star.”

Some not-so-pretty items on the moorings I like to call “mooring acne” are called tunicates. These are filter feeders and come in many different forms.

Tunicate

Sea Squirt

The one on my hand looks like a giant pimple and when you try to take it off the mooring it squirts you in the face. Not surprisingly this tunicate is called the “Sea Squirt.”

Think about it…

All of the life on the Lego mooring was sent back to the sea to hopefully find a new home. The Lego pallet mooring mentioned above is not large, about 4 ft by 6ft. The mooring in this story was only in the ocean one year and became the home of the above mentioned marine animals – crabs, sea stars, tunicates, and also thousands of barnacles! One tiny piece of the sea floor contained all this life! Imagine how rich in life the entire unseen ecosystem is in the Chukchi Sea!

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

For the last two days, I saw several walruses. Pictured below is one that popped up by a piece of ice. Teaser – look for a future blog focusing on walrus and their habitat.

Walrus by ice — A walrus pops its head up above water near a piece of ice

Now and Looking forward

We are now seeing small bands of pack ice and individual pieces of ice called “growlers”. Sea ice has not interrupted science operations, as of today. There is plenty of open water so far. We should see ice of different concentrations for the rest of the trip as we continue to head north. Look for future pictures and some of the science on sea ice coming soon. For now here are a couple pictures from August 15.

Growlers in fog — “Growlers” – the view looking from the deck of USCGC Healy down into the fog

Walrus broken ice — Another view of the walrus, swimming near broken up ice

August 14, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Calling in the Drones, August 13, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 13, 2018

Current location/conditions: Evening August 13 – northwest of Icy Point Alaska

Air temp 34F, sea depth 45 m , surface sea water temp 42F

Calling in the Drones

We have not seen another ship or any other sign of civilization since we left Nome, until today when NOAA scientists coordinated an at sea meeting between the Healy and two saildrones. Saildrones are remotely piloted sailboats that roam the seas without anyone on board. A given route is programmed for collecting data and changes to the sailboat’s survey area can be given directly by satellite through the Internet. After not seeing anything on the horizon for many days when the sail drone came into view it was quite eerie for me. It was like a random floating traffic cone dropped in the Arctic. I was amazed that it did not tip over. The saildrone has a relatively large keel (the fin part of the boat you cannot see under water) to help it from tipping over. The boat itself is about 7 m long (23 ft) x 5 m tall ( 16.3 ft) x 2.5 m wide (8.2 ft) with a traveling speed of 3 to 5 knots.

Saildrone on the ocean — The saildrone is a remotely piloted sailboat that contains many scientific instruments.

We collected surface water samples near the drone that will be tested to verify the accuracy of the drones reporting instruments.

The instruments on a saildrone measure weather conditions and ocean conditions and properties. The ocean data includes measurements for temperature, wave height, sea depth, currents, pH, salinity, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. Underwater microphones listen for marine mammals and an echosounder can keep track of fish that pass by. This is a wealth of information in an area of the world where there are so few ships to report back weather and sea observations to civilization.

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

We caught Thysanoessa inermis in the big Methot net today. I had to have Nissa Ferm, a fisheries biologist from Lynker Inc working under contract for NOAA, spell that word out for me. She wrote it down without hesitation. I found this amazing because even spell check doesn’t recognize those words. Nissa identifies many specimens we catch by eye and then verifies identification under a microscope. In general terms, Thysanoessa inermis is a type of organism often referred to as krill and is only about a centimeter in length.

Thysanoessa inermis is a vital member of the bottom of the food chain and an animal that eats phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is a microscopic plant that lives in the sunlit layers of the ocean and gets energy from the sun. As with all plants, this is done through the process of photosynthesis. In the case of phytoplankton being an underwater plant, it uses carbon dioxide dissolved in the water in its photosynthesis process. Thysanoessa inermis helps gather this energy in by eating the phytoplankton and then becomes the prey of much larger creatures in the marine food chain such as fish and whales.

Now and Looking Forward

Although it was short lived, we saw our first snow flurry today. It was incredible to see snowflakes in August! I am looking forward to more snowflakes and continued cool weather.

August 13, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Moorings All Day, August 12, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 12, 2018

Current location/conditions: mid day August 12 Northwest of Icy Point Alaska

Air temp 34F, sea depth 43 m , surface sea water temp 43F

Moorings all day

Moorings are essentially anything left tied to an anchor at sea. In this case, moorings hold many different types of scientific instruments that have been anchored at sea for a year. We are only here in the Arctic for a couple weeks. In order to monitor the ocean when people are not here, many different kinds of underwater instruments that have been designed to record ocean conditions are left under the ocean attached to moorings. To service these moorings they must be retrieved. This is one of the main tasks of this trip. When we arrive at a mooring station, one would not know it as the mooring is underneath the ocean, hidden from sight. A audio signal is sent to the underwater release and a buoy (a large yellow float) is deployed. Then, the Coast Guard steps into action. This picture below shows a Coast Guard crew fishing for a buoy in a not-so-calm sea. When they hook the buoy they will tie it to a rope that is hooked into the Healy‘s on board winch. The winch will pull in the buoy as the rope is wrapped around a turning spool.

Moffitt_Mooring Retrieval_small — The Coast Guard crew fish for a buoy in a not-so-calm sea

When the buoys and attached instruments come out of the ocean they can be covered with sea life, such as barnacles which you may be able to see as small white shell looking creatures in the picture below. The buoy in the picture is mostly covered in bryozoans. Although it looks like seaweed, bryozoans are not plants, but tiny sea filtering animals chained together. Either way it has got to go. This was my job today. I washed all the buoys and cleaned the instruments. For the sensitive parts on the instruments, this meant using a sponge and toothbrush. For the rest of the instrument, I used a power washer.

Mooring retrieved from the ocean — A mooring retrieved from the ocean, covered in marine life – mainly bryozoans.

cleaned instrument — A close-up of the mooring instrument, post-cleaning

Once this instrument is in the science lab, the sound recorder (as mentioned in the August 8th blog post) was taken apart and thoroughly cleaned. It will be reused at another station during this trip if all is functioning well. In the next picture, this equipment is now shown cleaned and sitting in the lab. Much of the cleaning was done with toothbrushes and a wire brush. So another important role for a scientist is spending a lot of time cleaning equipment! Not exactly glorious!

The Mustang Suit

In my life, I have power washed many things, but aboard the Healy in the Arctic, for safety reasons, I have to wear a Mustang suit. Essentially the Mustang is an oversized orange snowsuit designed to save a life if anyone falls overboard into the near freezing Arctic waters. It has a light beacon and a whistle attached for rescuers to find you and it is designed to keep body heat in for a longer amount of time than plain clothes. This is to try to keep anyone from immediately getting hypothermia and hopefully provide the additional few minutes it would take to rescue a man overboard. I prefer to call the Mustang a big fluffy orange sweat suit– even though it was 34 degrees out I was sweating in it!

NH dudes — Teacher at Sea Roy Moffitt (left) and UNH researcher Anthony Lyons (right) wearing Mustang Suits

Here I am, in this picture, looking like an orange Pillsbury doughboy with fellow New Hampshire resident Anthony Lyons. Anthony is from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and is a Research Professor at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering. Anthony is retrieving and deploying moorings with passive acoustic devices that record animal sounds and rain from under the ice. The instruments also measure the density of plankton and fish in the water, both food sources for marine animals. With data over time, changes in density of these populations with changes of ice cover can be found.

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

Sometimes life clings on to the moorings. These basking starfish were attached to a mooring we pulled in yesterday. Then, the next picture is an Anemone curled up in a ball that was also attached to another mooring.

Basking Starfish

Anemone

Now and Looking Forward

Air temperature has dropped to 34 degrees F, and although the surface sea temperature is 43, lower in the water column the temperatures are actually near or below freezing. It looks like we may see some pieces of ice as soon as next mooring stations tomorrow. Those changing conditions will have to be monitored for mooring retrieval, as a buoy cannot pop up through ice!

August 12, 2018August 12, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Catching the Tiny Fish in the Big Sea, August 10, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 10, 2018

Current location/conditions: mid day August 10

Air temp 45F, sea depth 59 m , surface sea water temp 44F

Catching the Tiny Fish in the Big Sea

For the past two days, I helped out Robert Levine, PhD Student of Oceanography at the University of Washington, working with NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center. We sent out a Methot net to catch juvenile fish today. In the below picture, taken yesterday, I am helping Robert assemble the Methot net.

assembling Methot net — Teacher at Sea Roy Moffitt helps assemble the Methot net

For catching fish a centimeter or two long, the net seems huge. The opening of the net is approximately 2.2 meters by 2.2 meters or 5 square meters. The net itself is approximately 10 meters long. The holes in the net are only 2 mm. This means anything bigger than 2 mm will be caught up in the net.

Before sending the net into the sea Levine takes an echogram survey. He lowers the recorder overboard and the attached cable sends the results back to the computer on board. Two different wavelengths are sent out and bounce off anything in the sea column. The smaller wavelengths will show where any of the smaller fish are hanging out. The results give an accurate depth measurement of the ocean and shows small organisms at about 28 meters in depth. The net is then lowered into the sea and trawled at that depth for about 15 minutes.

My task during the net deployment was to measure the angle of the cable entering the water by using a hand held inclinometer. It is important to keep the angle around 45 degrees to keep the proper depth.

today's catch — Photos of today’s catch: at top left, a view of the unsorted bucket; top right, a petri dish with fish sorted by species; bottom, juvenile fish displayed on measuring tape

Today was not considered a high population area, but we were still able to catch some fish and more marine life. All contents end up in a canister at the end of the net in a big slurry of sloppy stew. In the picture of the bucket the fish are hidden within moon jellyfish and all the little black dots that are crab megalopa. Crab megalopa is the second life stage of a crab before transformation into juvenile crabs to start their life on the sea floor. For fish today what was caught in the net were juvenile Cod, juvenile flat fish, and Sculpin. (Shown in picture with the round dish.)

The goal of this fish collection is to verify the presence of juvenile fish and better understand the geographic range of fish during their life cycle. The exact identification of each will take some time and many of the tiny fish are frozen and sent out to labs for further identification. Levine will also be releasing several bottom-moored echo sounders during the trip. These instruments will be able to monitor the presence of fish and record that data over the year.

Now and Looking forward

Future specimen collections on this trip will be happening using the Methot net to verify distribution and seasonal movement of fish population in the Chukchi Sea.

August 12, 2018August 12, 2018

Roy Moffitt: The Globe Comes Alive with a Real World View on the USCGC Healy, August 9, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 9, 2018

Current location/conditions:
Evening of August 9th
North of the Bering Strait, North of the Arctic Circle

Air temp 49F, sea depth 35 m , surface water temp 52F

The Globe Comes Alive with a Real World View on the USCGC Healy

This morning was very exciting moment for me to share with students. We crossed through the Bering Strait coming right next to the International Date Line and then crossed over the Arctic Circle. In the classroom we often look at these features on a globe. For me to see what my students and I have only seen on a globe or map for so many years in front of us on a clear sunrise morning was awesome! Looking at the panoramic picture below was my best attempt to share the Bering Strait with all of you.

The Bering Strait

Picture below, the Bering Strait at sunrise facing northeast to the rising sun.

In this picture we are passing through the Bering Strait and this is a 180 degrees panoramic picture from the port side of the ship. The Cape Prince of Wales is the westernmost point on the mainland of the United States and the continent of North America. Cape Dezhnev, Russia is the easternmost mainland point of Russia and the continent of Asia. Only 51 miles (82 km) separate these two points. This close proximity, shallow sea depths, and historical findings of the native settlements in the area have led historians to believe this was the entry point to the America’s first human inhabitants. This shallow sea only average in the 30s to 50s meters in depth and is also one of the reasons for the rich sea life in the area. The continental shelf extends throughout the Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea to help create this vast area of shallow seas rich in marine life. This area that extends all the way to the Northern edge the continental shelf to north of Alaska will continue to be the study area on our trip.

Looking at Tomorrow Across the International Date Line

One of the imaginary lines humans have created on globe is the International Date Line. Today we traveled right next to that imaginary line and were able to see tomorrow. In this picture below is the island that sits in middle of the Bering Strait, the Russian island of Big Diomede.

Moffitt_Big Diomede_smalllpic — The Russian island of Big Diomede, looking south during sunrise, which is causing the island to appear red.

Between the ship and the island runs the International Date Line. So for us on the ship it was sunrise for Thursday Morning, but for the island of Big Diomede it was sunrise for Friday Morning. So yes, I saw tomorrow!

The Arctic Circle

The tilt of the earth on its axis is a topic we covered in my Science class this year. This tilt not only creates our seasons but the lands of 24 hours daylight in the summer and 24 hours of darkness in the winter. That line is just north of latitude 66°33′ and we have crossed that line. Its now August so we are headed to fall, but sun is out at midnight and is setting around 12:30 am and is up by 6am. In between these night time hours are still twilight, meaning never truly dark and typically you can still see the horizon.

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

Today a pair of Fin Whales swam by several hundred meters from the ship. Fin whales are the second largest animals on this planet second to the Blue Whale and are also endangered. So, it was special to see them. Fin Whales eat crustaceans, squid and small schools of fish and can grow up to 85 ft / 25 m.

Now and Looking forward

As we move forward in time the sun will rise 5 minutes later a day and set 5 minutes earlier. That means we lose 10 minutes of sun a day. In another 2 weeks towards the end of this trip in two weeks there will be 140 minutes less or two hours and 20 minutes of less day light!