Category: NOAA Teacher at Sea

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Richard Chewning, June 15th, 2010

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Richard Chewning
Onboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
June 4 – 24, 2010

NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson
Mission: Pollock Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Alaska (Kodiak) to eastern Bering Sea (Dutch Harbor)
Date: June 15th, 2010

Weather Data from the Bridge

Position: eastern Bering Sea
Time: 1530
Latitude: N 55 47.020
Longitude: W 165 24.970
Cloud Cover: overcast
Wind: 14 knots
Temperature: 6.4 C
Barometric Pressure: 1003.7 mbar

Science and Technology Log

In addition to researchers on the lookout for seabirds, the Oscar Dyson is also hosting researchers hoping to catch a glimpse of some the world’s largest animals: marine mammals. Either ocean dwelling or relying on the ocean for food, marine mammals include cetaceans (whales, porpoises, and dolphins), manatees, sea lions, sea otters, walrus, and polar bears. Although marine mammals can be enormous in size (the largest blue whale ever recorded by National Marine Mammal Laboratory scientists was 98 feet long or almost the length of a ten story building laid on its side!), studying marine mammals at sea can be challenging as they spend only a short time at the surface. Joining the Dyson from the NMML on this cruise are Suzanne Yin, Paula Olson, and Ernesto Vazquez. As a full time observer, Yin spends most of the year on assignment on various vessels sailing on one body of water or another and only occasionally is to be found transitioning through her home of San Francisco, California. Paula calls San Diego, California home and spends most of her time when not observing at sea working on a photo identification database of blue and killer whales. Ernesto is a contract biologist from La Paz, Mexico and has been working on and off with NOAA for several years. Ernesto has worked with several projects for the Mexican government including ecological management of the Gulf of California Islands.

Yin keeping warm from the cold

Ernesto keeping sharp lookout for marine mammals

Paula keeping an eye on the horizon

Yin, Paula, and Ernesto undoubtedly have the best view on the Oscar Dyson. Working as a three member team, they search for their illusive quarry from the flying bridge. The flying bridge is the open air platform above the bridge where the ship’s radar, communication equipment, and weather sensors are located. One observer is positioned both on the front left and front right corners of the flying bridge. Each observer is responsible for scanning the water directly in front to a line perpendicular to the ship forming a right angle. Two powerful BIG EYE binoculars are used to scan this to scan this 90 degree arc. These binoculars are so powerful they can spot a ship on the horizon at over ten miles (even before the Dyson’s radar can detect the vessel!). The third person is stationed in the middle of the flying bridge and is responsible for surveying directly ahead of the ship and for scanning the blind spot just in front of the ship that is too close for the BIG EYES to see. This person is also responsible for entering sightings into a computer database via a lap top computer. The three observers rotate positions every thirty minutes and take a thirty minute break after one full rotation. One complete shift lasts two hours. Yin, Paula, and Ernesto start soon after breakfast and will continue observing until 9:30 at night if conditions allow.

Dall’s porpoise

Weather can produce many challenges for marine mammal observers as they are exposed to the elements for hours at a time. Fortunately, Yin, Paula, and Ernesto are well prepared. Covered from head to toe wearing insulated Mustang suits (the name come from the manufacturer), they are pretty well protected from light spray, wind, and cold. Although a certain amount of the face is always exposed, a shoulder high wind shield helps deflect most of the spray and wind. In addition to wind chill and wind burn, a strong wind can also produce large rolling waves called swells that make viewing through the BIG EYES next to impossible. Sometimes reducing visibility so much that the bow can barely be seen the bridge, fog is undoubtedly a marine mammal observer’s greatest adversary.

Humpback whales through the Big Eyes
Salmon fishing operation through the Big Eyes

So far during the cruise, Yin, Paula, and Ernesto have spotted many blows on the horizon and have identified several species of marine mammals. A common sighting is the Dall’s porpoise. Your eyes are easily drawn towards these fun marine mammals as they produce characteristic white splashes by repeatedly breaking the water’s surface exposing a white stripe on their side. Blows from fin whales have also been regularly observed. Other sightings include killer whales, humpback whales, Pacific white sided dolphins, and a rare sighting of a Baird’s beaked whale.

Personal Log

Life aboard a constantly moving platform can take a little getting used to! I imagine if a person doesn’t live in an area frequented by earthquakes, one will easily take for granted the fact that the ground usually remains stable and firm underfoot (I know I did!). Over the last view days, steady winds from the south have conspired to create conditions ideal for rolling seas. Large swells (waves created by winds far away) make the Dyson very animated as we push forward on our survey transects. In addition to making deployments of gear more difficult, routine personal tasks soon assume a challenging nature as well. Whether you are simply getting dressed in the morning, trying to make your way to your seat with lunch in hand, or taking a shower in the evening, a constantly pitching and rolling deck will make even a seasoned deckhand wobble and stumble from time to time.

Building seas

A piece of advice I have often heard during these conditions calls for “one hand for you and one for the ship”. Maintaining three points of contact with ship, especially when moving between decks, can save you from being tossed off balance. The crew is very considerate of these conditions and allows even more understanding than customary when you bump into shipmates. I have also learned the importance of securing any loose equipment and personal items after usage during rough seas as they might not be in the same place when you return. In addition to waking several times during the night and having a restless sleep, these conditions will also leave you feeling stiff and fatigued in the morning after a bumpy night of being tossed around in your rack. Once you muster the strength to get moving, your legs become surprisingly tired as you constantly try to keep your balance. Along with the rest of the crew, the Dyson also feels the effects of jogging through rough seas as you constantly hear the rhythmic sounds of the bow plowing though the next wave and of the ship’s superstructure groaning under the strain.

Measuring the Dyson’s roll
Passing through the fog

Did you know? Fog is essentially a cloud on the ground’s surface.

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Kate DeLussey: Introduction, June 6, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kate DeLussey
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
July 3 – 18, 2012

Mission:  Deep Sea Coral Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Atlantic Ocean, Leaving from  Newport, RI
Date: June 6, 2012

Current Location: Philadelphia, PA; Latitude:40.0409483; Longitude:-75.1287162

Greetings and Welcome to My NOAA Blog!

I am Kathleen (Kate) DeLussey from the J. R. Lowell School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in a city of 1.5 million, I have spent most of my life in the same five-mile radius.  The school where I teach is right down the street from the elementary school I went to when I was a child.  I am a true city kid.  You may have taken a yellow bus to school, but I rode the “El” train.  Water came out of the “tap” and early fish experiences included both rectangular “sticks” and orange pets, but we will not talk about either of those things here.

Visit Philadelphia! The city needs the oceans too!

So, you may question why a woman like me, a teacher with four children who experienced her first plane flight last year, would be excited about participating in scientific research aboard a NOAA vessel as a Teacher at Sea.  Especially when I am not exactly sure about what I am going to be doing, (Hint:  The more I learn about the Oceans and Atmosphere, the more information I have to share with our students at Lowell School.)

You may also be wondering why a Reading Specialist in a K-4 school would be so interested in what is happening in Earth’s Oceans and Atmosphere, especially when I come from such a large city.  (Hint:  We all need to learn about and care for our Earth’s Oceans.)

Finally, you may be wondering how a teacher’s experience at sea will encourage our students, and their families to connect with and learn more about the Earth’s Oceans and Atmosphere.  (Hint:  When I show you how wonderful and important our Oceans are to the life of all things on Earth, you will just have to get involved!)

If you are thinking and asking questions like these as you read, GREAT!  When students and teachers just have to know, they are behaving like scientists, and like writers.

I just had to know more about NOAA’s work.  I have read many things, seen TV programs, and visited Web sites to teach me about oceans, but I still have many questions.

How do the scientists at NOAA understand and forecast the weather?

How do they understand fish?

What types of jobs do the people at NOAA have?

How can my students prepare for careers at NOAA?

Where can my students find the answers to their own questions?

How can I find out more?

I was researching the answers to these questions on the NOAA website when I saw the chance for teachers to go to sea.  I applied, and I was chosen!  To use the words of our principal Mrs. Runner, “WHOOOO WHOOOO!”  I am so excited to be participating as a Teacher at Sea.

After I found out I was going to be a NOAA Teacher at Sea, I wanted to prepare my students for ocean learning and did what all good teachers do at the beginning of a lesson.  I asked my third grade friends in Room 207 some questions.  “What do you know about the Oceans?  Tell me everything you know!”  Of course, the students wrote the “lists” of things they “knew” about the oceans and they really shared some of their thinking as they wrote.

What the students in Room 207 report they know about the oceans:

Emily, Isaiah, and Lusine had the longest lists, and while all of the students reported they  “knew” something about oceans, most of the answers on the student lists looked like this:

  • The oceans cover most of the Earth’s surface
  • The oceans have lots of living things like fish, crabs, and sharks
  • The oceans are important to the Earth
  • You can swim in the ocean

You can see that for our students to become ocean experts, they really needed more details to add to their list of “what they know.”

(Some of the ideas the students put on the list were not true, and I do not want to put those ideas on this list, because I want to include only true information in my Blog.)  I do not want to confuse anyone about a topic as important as Earth’s Oceans.

This list only had Big Ideas about the oceans and even with my thinking, we could not add many details.  You can see we all have a lot to learn about our oceans.

So, I am be bringing the future “Ocean Literacy” of our 1,000 students with me as I work with NOAA during my Teacher at Sea adventure.  (Hi kids!)

Our big questions for this mission will be:

  1. What are Deep Sea Coral Reefs?
  2. How do scientists study deep sea coral reefs?
  3. What do scientists do with the information they gather during their research?

I am participating on this trip because I want to find answers to our questions.  I also want to be sure everyone understands NOAA’s work so we all can participate as scientists and writers to help protect our Earth’s Oceans and Atmosphere.

Join me–not only a teacher–but also a citizen of the Earth planet as I work as a guest scientist aboard the Henry B. Bigelow, a NOAA research vessel.

Continue to ask questions as you read my blogs.  We may not find the answers to all of our Big Questions, but we will be better prepared to find our answers as we gain knowledge and as we add details to our scientific knowledge and to our writing.

Hopefully, at the end of my journey, you may be wondering if you could to this “At Sea” research too!

 

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Marsha Skoczek: Preparing to Set Sail Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces! June 5, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Marsha Skoczek
Soon to be Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces
July 6 – 19, 2012

Mission: Marine Protected Areas Survey
Geographic area of cruise:  Subtropical North Atlantic, off the east coast of Florida
Date:  June 5, 2012

Personal Log

touch tank picture
Me at our saltwater touch tank.

Greetings from Olathe, Kansas!  My name is Marsha Skoczek and I am an instructor in the Geoscience Program at Olathe North High School.  High school students from all over Olathe apply to be a part of the Geoscience Program because they have a passion for the earth sciences.  Many of my students want to become a marine biologist or some type of ocean research scientist.  I teach Marine Biology and Oceanography, yes from the middle of the country, so in order to have a better understanding of the material I teach I applied to and was accepted for the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program.  I am fortunate enough to be preparing to set sail aboard the NOAA Ship Pisces as part of a research team investigating the Marine Protected Areas (MPA) off the Southeastern Atlantic states.

In 2009 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established eight Marine Protected Areas to protect the spawning grounds for several species of Grouper, Snapper, and Tilefish.  These reef dwelling species are slow growing fish often not spawning until they are four or five years old.  Some species such as the Yellowedge Grouper can live to be as much as 80 years old!  Several other species such as the Snowy Grouper and the Speckled Hind Grouper are all born as females and do not change into males until they are older, making it a high priority that we protect their habitat so these species can live long enough to reproduce.

As fish are being harvested from the water beyond many of the species’ maximum sustainable yield, it is imperative that the natural habitats of these species are protected, not only so the fish populations can continue to thrive, but also so that scientists can have the time to research the life cycles of these fish in order to establish yearly limits based on scientific data before they are fished to extinction.

I am fortunate enough to be a part of a research expedition doing just that, we will be studying the habitat and fish population of five Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to see if closing these areas to bottom fishing is a beneficial step in preventing the extinction of these species.

NOAA Ship Pisces

The team I will be working with is made up of scientists from the Panama City NOAA Fisheries Lab, the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, University of North Carolina Wilmington, and the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science.  Preparations for this research expedition began over a year ago when the scientists had to begin writing their proposal to fund this trip.  As you can imagine, working with scientists from multiple institutions takes time and careful planning.  Conference calls were made with the crew of the Pisces so details could be discussed about the operations needed to be performed, as well as other long distance communications with the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) pilots and the mapping scientist from Charleston, South Carolina.

Data on our expedition will be collected by ROV to capture on video the fish and invertebrate populations in each MPA; water column data on temperature, pressure and conductivity will be collected by CTD profiling; and night time sonar mapping will be used to determine the most beneficial areas to launch the ROV on the following day.

As you can see, there is a lot of work to do during our two weeks at sea.  I am anxiously awaiting our departure next month so that I can witness first hand real ocean research.  This information will be invaluable as I prepare my students for their future careers as marine biologist and oceanographers!  Please follow along as we set sail on this most important adventure!

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Sue Oltman: June 4, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Sue Oltman
Aboard R/V Melville
May 22 – June 6, 2012

Weather Data from the Bridge (Baltra Harbor, Ecuador)
Air temperature: 27.3 C / 81.1 F
Barometric pressure: 1010.22 mb
Relative humidity: 71.3
Precipitation: 0.3 mm
Wind speed: 12.7 knots, SE
Sea temperature: 25.01 C

Personal log

Everything was decluttered, packed, cleaned and mopped in the lab. We cleaned our staterooms and bathrooms to get ready for inspections by the captain.

Now that the work is done, a few of us have discovered the foosball table in the upper lab. It was great fun!  Playing foosball on a moving ship that is heaving, pitching and rolling puts a new dimension to the game.

Science ships are not the only ones that names cold storage areas for science needs, as my students can attest!
Science ships are not the only ones that names cold storage areas for science needs, as my students can attest to!

For our last dinner on the ship, wild game from South Africa was grilled. Not only was there kudu again (yum!) but we had ostrich and springbok.  Some type of squash was also grilled. All were tasty; the ostrich kind of sweet and surprisingly looked like steak, too.  I couldn’t decide which was more delicious, the springbok or the kudu.  It was fun to try some new foods, and I don’t know when I will get the opportunity to do so again. There was also some ice cream made from cheramoya, a Chilean fruit.

After dinner, which is served at 5, a group of us also were shown the crow’s nest above the bridge. We had to climb up a vertical ladder – no stairs – and pop out of a manhole to go into it and look out the windows, and only two people could fit at a time.  Part of the radar is housed here.  If you climbed up yet another ladder, there was the highest platform you could stand on, and the view was great!

From the platform above the crow’s nest: me, Pamela, Magda, Eric, Jamie, Ursula, and Elsie
From the platform above the crow’s nest: me, Pamela, Magda, Eric, Jamie, Ursula, and Elsie

The sunset from here, and the full moon rising, was quite a sight. Still, there was no land on the horizon. Later in the evening, I went to one of the upper decks to just look at the stars. Even with the brilliant light from the moon, the clear view of the stars and the southern hemisphere constellations was breathtaking. In the morning, we would be in the Galapagos Islands.

Science and Technology Log

It’s a wrap!

The science team is ready to disembark and relax from working continuously for 14 days on the R/V Melville, not to mention the days working on the ground while the ship was in port. The data will be analyzed and soon the WHOI team will get ready for the next deployment and recovery in Hawaii. I will be back home, ready to begin my summer vacation from school!  I have really learned a lot from each member of this team.  It has been a privilege to work with them and know that they will go with me to my next students.

The WHOI UOP group – Jamie, Jeff,Nan, Bob, me, Sean and Sebastien
The WHOI UOP group – Jamie, Jeff,Nan, Bob, me, Sean and Sebastien

If you hold fast to the stereotype that scientists are nerdy, introverted individuals with poor social skills and no outside interests, working with the WHOI group will quickly dispel this myth. While experts in their field, each person brings some personality to their work which adds up to a positive dynamic that anyone would enjoy being around. We have worked together for two weeks in the “main lab”- one big room on the main deck with ease, and had some laughs along the way.  In talking to everyone, each WHOI scientist has a unique story and set of skills that I wish I had the time and space to share in this blog.  I took the time to interview the Chief Scientist, Dr. Robert (Bob) Weller about his career in oceanography, and here is some of that conversation. (Italics are mine)

SO: When did you first become interested in oceanography?

RW: At first in college. I was a biochemistry major, but it seemed to be more memorization and not enough thinking skills. Also at the time, I was working for an Oceanography professor at Harvard, making deep sea pressure gauges, learning how to machine parts, very hands-on, and really liked that, so I changed to Engineering and Applied Physics to go into Oceanography.

SO: It’s such a broad field, how did you narrow your focus down to moorings?

RW: For graduate school, I went to Scripps Institute of Oceanography (part of University of California, San Diego) and my advisor was working in upper ocean physics. No one had had success observing the wind-driven or Ekman currents, and that became a goal. As part of work toward a thesis, I designed a new current meter capable of observing near-surface currents in the presence of wave motion.  This current meter was particularly needed for use on surface moorings, and is still in use. There was a lot of progress to be made in surface moorings – as of the mid 1970s the longest experiment using one was about 30 days, as one that was in the Gulf of Alaska did.  Meanwhile, at WHOI, after WWII, there were lots of resources and they were getting pretty good at sub-surface moorings (no surface float, the buoyancy is below the surface, away from wave motion). After grad school in the late 1970’s, I came to WHOI, and began to work on improving surface moorings and using them for studying the upper ocean. By the 1980’s, we were up to a surface mooring lasting 6 months.

SO: Have you been to all of the worlds’ oceans with buoys and moorings?

RW:  I have not been to the Arctic or the Southern Ocean, if defined as 45 beginning at South, but soon!

SO: Mistakes are something we like to avoid, but has there been some trial and error that has turned out helpful in the long run?

RW: We have made progress on changing the materials of buoy from aluminum to the materials we use now. There was a surface mooring near Iceland that did not last and the reason turned out to be a low-tech piece of forged metal hardware that failed from cyclical fatigue (flexing and bending, responding to tension changes) so we had to improve our mooring designs and the hardware we used.

Also, after that failure in 1989 the Navy funded work to improve how we design surface moorings for challenging locations.  This work continued as we prepared to deploy a surface mooring in the Arabian Sea in the mid-1990s.  That surface mooring survived the monsoon season so we knew we had improved our design.

With the Stratus project, we started out thinking that the cold water from upwelling was making its way out to the eastern tropical Pacific causing the cooler ocean temperatures. After studying this, we have found it was not the case, so we continue to look for the cause.

This year, we deployed the mechanical current meters deeper into the ocean to try to avoid the fouling by barnacles as well as the fishing line which causes them to stop working (gets into propellers) and also to get ocean currents over more of the water column.  What we found was that the battery life was shorter where the temperatures were colder at these depths, so we did not recover a year of data from them. We also tried some new current meters which worked really well.

SO: You are working on a small part of climate research, a very long-term issue and a big picture, what is the reward of your part of the research?

RW: Getting to go on cruises like this one, working in the field with great people like we have is very rewarding. Recovering one buoy and deploying another is a big accomplishment and it is great to be involved in this. (note: There are 3 such deployments each year.)

SO: WHOI maintains 2 other buoys; can you talk about the importance of these locations?

RW: The 3 buoys together occupy the trade winds areas. One is north of Hawaii, and there is a rising level of carbon dioxide there. We are seeing the ocean’s absorption of CO2 has been rising faster than the rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also, over a decade, weather patterns have been changing near Hawaii and the ocean is becoming more salty due to less precipitation; the hydrologic cycle is changing which has practical implications, too. The trade wind regions are where tropical storms transit, strengthening with energy out of the ocean; we should know more about this.  The other location, near Barbados in the Atlantic, is where Atlantic hurricanes often transit.

SO: Can you tell me some more about the drifters we have launched?

RW: The drifters are an international program that NOAA is invested with, and first of all, they take sea surface temperature (SST) measurements. SST is measured worldwide by satellites, but this is through clouds and aerosols (atmospheric impurities) and is hard to get SST precise to a tenth of a degree. The satellites are calibrated using the SST provided by the surface drifters. The goal is to have 2 drifters per 5 degree (latitude and longitude) square which is a challenge.  In the southern ocean, they add barometers to the surface drifters to help predict storms.

The ARGO floats are also an international effort; the goal is to try to have one in every 3 degree square of ocean, to surface every 10 days to calibrate ocean models. This helps us understand rising sea levels, which happen as the ocean warms and expands as well as when polar ice melts. They go to 1,500 to 2,000 m to find the heat content of the ocean. They last about 4 years and there are about 3,000 of them worldwide.

SO: If you were to go into another area of ocean research, what would it be?

RW: We have seen that there is a warm salty layer and a fresher cooler layer below. It would be interesting to study what is causing the mixing between these layers and how the wind plays in.

SO: In what areas of Oceanography do you foresee a lot of career paths and job opportunities?

RW: In terms of locations, The National Science Foundation in international collaboration is looking to have a 25-year study including the Gulf of Alaska, Greenland, and off the Southern tip of Chile and Argentina. There is a lack in information about these important high latitude areas.

There is a growing demand for AUVs (Autonomous unmanned vehicles) which have many applications. Designing and applying AUVs as well as surveying the ocean floor.

Ocean acoustics is another field of growth.

Bathymetry and physics of the ocean as well as marine policy/ social science are other areas.  There are lots of applications of technology.

SO: What about in biology of the oceans?

RW: In studying fisheries, you quickly learn that you can’t study a species in isolation and that other factors such as the physical structure and variability of the ocean and local human activities that affect the habitat are important.

The other members of the science team bring varied backgrounds that have transferred well into oceanographic research. Their college degrees were not all oceanography, but their skills and knowledge are helpful in their jobs. Some of their former experience includes computer programming, biology, finance, data analysis, and mechanical design. Two attended the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and one Florida State, before coming to Woods Hole. There are yet more WHOI folks behind the scenes, back in Cape Cod, supporting this research cruise in other ways. Not everyone is needed (or cares to participate) in a hands on, 24/7 research cruise.  The team collaborates with other nations and with the global science community of oceans and climate research not only by sharing data, but by lending their expertise in a hands-on way. Jeff will be traveling straight to Australia to support a project there before he even goes home to Cape Cod. Some of our others include a biology graduate student, who works on the biological changes at the Mt. St. Helen’s volcano with Washington State University; international participants in the cruise are studying topics such as oceanography of the fjords in southern Chile and phytoplankton in the Pacific Ocean.  By working with these folks, I have seen that the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (at University of California San Diego) and WHOI are two of the USA’s preeminent institutions in preparing for ocean science careers.  Both have excellent outreach to schools, not only by supporting the Teacher at Sea program, but by providing web based educational resources and student activities.

Enjoying one of our last sunsets: Keith (Scripps), Bob Weller (WHOI), me, Jamie Holte (WHOI), Ursula Cifuentes (Concepcion), Sebastien Bigorre (WHOI), and front, Pamela Labbe also fromChile
Enjoying one of our last sunsets: Keith (Scripps), Bob Weller (WHOI), me, Jamie Holte (WHOI), Ursula Cifuentes (Concepcion), Sebastien Bigorre (WHOI), and front, Pamela Labbe also fromChile
This is my UCTD watch – Sebastien, Ursula and I held down to 8 watches and launched hourly UCTDs to gather salinity, temperature, and salinity data.
This is my UCTD watch – Sebastien, Ursula and I held down to 8 watches and launched hourly UCTDs to gather salinity, temperature, and salinity data.

WHOI’s mission statement reads – “The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution mission is to promote research and education to advance understanding of the ocean and its interaction with the Earth system and to communicating this understanding for the benefit of society.”  I have been enriched and am very grateful to have had a part in carrying out this mission.  Thank you, NOAA, WHOI and Scripps!


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Sue Oltman: Approaching Latitude Zero, June 1, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Sue Oltman
Aboard R/V Melville
May 22 – June 6, 2012

Mission: STRATUS Mooring Maintenance
Geographical Area: Southeastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Chile and Ecuador
Date: June 1, 2012

Weather Data from the Bridge:
Air temperature: 23.7. C / 74.6 F
Humidity: 73.1%
Precipitation: 0.3 mm
Barometric pressure: 1013.15 mB
Wind speed: 4.7 kt SE
Sea temperature: 24.77 C

We are almost at the equator!  The coordinates of the Galapagos Islands, where Puerto Ayora is, are 0, 90W.  The weather has been warm but a nice pleasant breeze is going all the time – the trade winds, a constant wind out of the southeast. It’s helpful as the ship is heading in the same direction as the wind!  When out on deck, it feels like perfect weather, it’s easy to forget how direct the sun is so close to the equator. Sunscreen is a necessity!  We are approaching the place where every day is an equinox.

It’s neat to think I will be staying at a hotel on the equator (equalizer of day and night.) Students, when I get to my hotel I will check and see whether water goes down the drain clockwise or counterclockwise, as we discussed in science class!

Most of the crew will take the ship to its home port in San Diego after dropping the science team off in the Galapagos. A new team of scientists will be waiting to board. The Stratus Team is crunching away at data gathering and wrapping up our reports.  Thoughts are starting to drift towards scenery of volcanic islands, beaches, giant tortoises and exotic birds which we look forward to seeing very soon!  So the science continues, no matter where you go…but we have a few more days left as sailors!

The crew tries to arrange some fun on occasional nights as we have to make our own entertainment…there is no TV and very limited internet (quite slow when it works!) and of course, no leisurely phone calls or text conversations from out here in the deep blue.  Sometimes it’s a movie – North by Northwest (a theme – our direction of travel), City of God, and a North Korean movie none of us had ever seen, as well as a poker game.  Most of us have books we are reading, but it was a big surprise that there is a fantastic library here! It has a few dozen shelves of books, mostly fiction, something for everyone’s taste. I’ve already read two books and have started a third.

Melville's library
There are about twice as many books than are shown in this picture! The library also has a TV and DVD player for watching a movie.

There are few books on the Galapagos Islands floating around and we have all been skimming them to decide how we will spend our time when we arrive in port. Many of us like to listen to our iPods and I have mentioned before, spend some time exercising.  Photography is a shared hobby, too, and now that our cruise is nearing an end, there is a lot of photo sharing going on. A few crew members find some spare time to fish from the side as we move forward. The ones that have been caught were shared at mealtimes. I especially enjoyed the yellowtail!

Being on a ship for a couple of weeks has also given me a look behind the scenes for every shipment of imports that comes across the seas to ports in theUnited States, such as Brunswick, Georgia. Each cargo ship has a crew of people bringing the goods over safely, loading and unloading, and doing it again. We have traversed over 2,000 miles and done it in excellent weather. The shipping industry and the goods my family and I use is something I had not given a second thought to before.  I have a new appreciation for the maritime industry.

Science and Technology Log

Since deploying the moored buoy, we have put quite a few drifters in the water including the one I personalized for our school!

Launching a drifter
Elsie and Jamie launch a drifter, one of many data gathering instruments that will drift with the current and report ocean temperature, and its location is tracked online.

Since we are getting closer to land, there is a higher likelihood of finding fishing gear in the water, so we have to be on alert for that at all times. We don’t want our instruments to get tangled up in the long lines fishermen leave in the water hoping for a catch to come along.  One day, the ship did run into some long lines and had to stop and make sure it wasn’t in the propellers. Another very cool instrument we’ve been deploying are ARGO drifter floats http://argo.whoi.edu/argo.whoi_about.html – Think of a scientific instrument that will measure temperature, conductivity (salinity)  and depth and that can be programmed to move around at different depths, GPS keeping track of its location for several months or even years.  They have computer processors in them and a little motor that “drives” it deeper or shallower as the need for data at certain coordinates dictates. Here is a diagram of the ARGO drifters we have been launching. http://argo.whoi.edu/argo.whoi_components.html

As the data from last year’s Stratus 11 deployment is analyzed, plus the hourly data from our UCTD profiles, several trends have become evident. I have also been able to get a look inside some of the instruments. Can you imagine sending a tablet computer hundreds of meters into the ocean? That is exactly what has been done. In the photo, you can see an example of an instrument that measured ocean currents for a year at great depth and pressure.

Gathering data from the mooring
Sean Whelan downloads the data from instruments and then prepares the instruments to be shipped back to Woods Hole.
Seaguard Current meter picture
Collecting data from a current meter using the touch screen and stylus, this instrument has withstood a year of underwater conditions on a card like you keep in a digital camera.

There is also redundancy of instruments (more than one) in case one fails or the battery dies, which sometimes does happen. Regarding the trends – the science team has anticipated this, having seen it similarly each year, these are their hypotheses as the Stratus experiment continues.  As we near the equator, the salinity is rising – there is more evaporation when the sun is more direct. As some of the ocean water becomes humidity in the atmosphere, the salt is left behind in the ocean, as salt does not change to a vapor in our atmosphere – it is left dissolved in the ocean and thus increases the ocean’s salinity. A “big” increase in salinity would be 1 part per thousand in a small area, for example, so we are tracking the trend of small changes. In the hourly UCDT deployments we have been conducting, we have measured between 34.08 and 37.7 parts per thousand.

Checking data in the main lab
Bob Weller and Sebastien Bigorre check the monitors for the status of the multi beam sonar display.

Oxygen content is important for all life as well as for many practical applications.  The absence of oxygen (or lower amounts) allows other chemical reactions to take place in the water.  The formation of certain acids becomes possible, which is deadly for some organisms, and favorable for others. An example we saw of this was a piece of hardware that was on the mooring cable had a very low oxygen levels, had sulfuric corrosion on it.

Another measure important to scientists is fluorescence which detects the amount of phytoplankton in the ocean – small organisms at the base of the ocean food web which use the CO2 to reproduce.

Society has great dependence on the ocean to absorb the right amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but at a certain point, the ocean chemistry will change and affect this balance of life. Climate prediction allows us to keep the pulse of the stability of this balance and all of this data we have gathered is part of the scientific puzzle of climate prediction.