Tag: el nino

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Diane Stanitski: Days 1-5 (Pre-Trip Log), August 11-15, 2002

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Diane Stanitski

Aboard NOAA Ship Ka’imimoana

August 16-30, 2002

Date: August 11-15, 2002

Pre-Trip Log

Two years ago, I took my Shippensburg University Climatology class on a field trip to the National Headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Silver Spring, MD. It was then that I learned about an amazing opportunity sponsored by NOAA known as the Teacher at Sea Program, and was immediately interested. I always keep my eyes open for new opportunities to learn up-to-date information about the atmosphere and to conduct exciting field research. This would also be a perfect chance for my students to learn more about current research which would help inspire them to pursue careers in the atmospheric and physical sciences.

During spring 2001, I was invited to attend a reception for Susan Carty, the first fully sponsored Teacher at Sea. She was inspiring, especially as I read her logs and learned about the kinds of research that she became involved with on the ship. I then attended the reception for Jennifer Richards and Jane Temoshok, the 2nd and 3rd sponsored Teachers at Sea. I then applied for an upcoming 24-day voyage from Honolulu to Nuku Hiva (where?!?) after reviewing my atlas to see where the ship would travel. I couldn’t believe it when I heard from the NOAA Teacher at Sea program that I’d been accepted! I immediately spoke with my husband who thought that I should jump at the opportunity (thanks, Jonathan!). Upon receipt of this dream position I followed Dana Tomlinson via the Teacher at Sea web site (this one!) as she set sail on the Ka’imimoana, the same ship that I am on today, experiencing the exciting research that she shared with her elementary school students. All previous teachers were excellent communicators and great sports. I hope that I can follow their exemplary performance.

Here is my story…

During the past week in Waikiki, I met with Cindy Hunter and other educators at the Waikiki Aquarium, to describe NOAA’s Teacher at Sea (TAS) Program so that they could more easily plan their own upcoming educator at sea program to the northwest Hawaiian Islands. It was exciting to learn that their teacher’s adventure would follow mine by a few days in mid-September. I will definitely plan to follow their voyage at the web site http://www.hawaiianatolls.org. Dr. John Kermond (the director, producer, videographer, etc. of all TAS webcasts) and I shot video footage at the Aquarium and interviewed their volunteers and educators.

Dr. Kermond was interviewed all day on Sunday, August 11, by the director of a Discovery (Canada) documentary about global warming, specifically El Niño’s link to global processes. The film crew asked me to walk beside Dr. Kermond along a gorgeous stretch of Waikiki Beach while they filmed us discussing El Niño together. We had to shoot the scene many times due to interruptions by planes flying overhead, dogs and people entering the picture, or clouds muting the light. It’s amazing what goes into a few minutes of tape during film production…very interesting overall.

We also met Delores Clark, of NOAA’s Public Affairs Office. I learned more about what their office does and she organized a meeting for us with the morning meteorologist from KHNL, a local Honolulu TV station. The broadcaster was most interested in the new tsunami buoy that is replacing an older one in the mid-Pacific. It will assist with the warning of tsunamis for the Hawaiian coastline. He also interviewed me about the Teacher at Sea Program.

It was an exciting couple days of new experiences.

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Dana Tomlinson: Day 22, March 22, 2002

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Dana Tomlinson

Aboard NOAA Ship Ka’imimoana

March 1 – 27, 2002

Date: Friday, March 22, 2002

Lat: 1°S
Long: 91°W
Seas: 2-4 ft.
Visibility: unrestricted
Weather: partly cloudy
Sea Surface Temp: 82-86°F
Winds: light airs
Air Temp: 86-79°F

Today makes exactly three weeks on the Ka’imimoana. And this will be my last Daily Log from it. What a day it was. It was truly a perfect day. The weather was crystal clear and warm with very little breeze. The waters are so flat it’s hard to believe you’re on an ocean. Since we are closing in on the Galapagos, we are seeing more animal life: two hugs pods of porpoises and a few different kinds of birds. Seeing the birds is nice. We have seen very few on this trip. Dr. McPhaden feels this could also be an indicator of El Niño since the waters are warmer, the fish may be fewer and, therefore, the birds have less to eat.

Everyone is very excited about reaching the Galapagos first thing tomorrow morning. The scientists have prepped and are ready for the buoy recoveries/deployments back on the 95°W line north of Galapagos. The crew was busy getting their work done so they can have some well-deserved time off (Ian and Dane were welding at sunset down on the fantail – it looked beautiful with the setting sun behind them). All hands worked very diligently on the leg down here and the CO is very glad to be able to give them some quality time in a port most have never seen before.

As for me, this is a farewell to the KA. Dr. Kermond, Dr. McPhaden and I will be leaving the ship here to spend a couple of days on Santa Cruz. I will continue to write my logs, but won’t have access to a computer until I get back to San Diego. So, in about a week, please check the website again for the finale to my trip. I thank Cmdr. Tisch and his wonderful crew of dedicated, professional workers for making me feel just like one of them, and giving me the opportunity to bring the valuable work they do to the world, as well as experience what it is like to be a scientist for a while. This experience can only help to make me a better teacher with what I can bring to my students. Thanks to NOAA for a win-win situation. And now I’m off to pack as much into two days in the Galapagos as I can! Stay tuned……………

Question of the Day: 

Here’s a no-brainer: did I have fun and learn a lot on the KA? You’re darn right I did. It was truly the experience of a lifetime.

Answer(s) of the Day: 

From Wednesday: Amy has 6 hours between CTD’s if she’s doing them every degree. It’s about 60 miles to a degree. And the ship goes about 10mph. From Thursday: Once again, knowing that 1 degree is about 60 miles, when you count up the degrees, you get almost forty. That would be 2400 miles and Mrs. Mackay’s class in San Diego got it almost right on the money. Super job, you all!

Til I return from the Galapagos,
🙂 Dana

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Dana Tomlinson: Day 17, March 17, 2002

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Dana Tomlinson

Aboard NOAA Ship Ka’imimoana

March 1 – 27, 2002

Date: Sunday, March 17, 2002

Lat: 8°S
Long: 105°W
Seas: 4-7 ft
Visibility: unrestricted
Weather: mostly cloudy with isolated rainshowers
Sea Surface Temp:
Winds: E 10-15 knots
Air Temp: 87-74°F

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Clem cooked up quite the corned beef and cabbage feast today. Hope all of you had fun too. We are presently transiting from the 110°W line to the 95°W line, so there are no scientific experiments going on now. Rather, there is a lot of preparation going on by the scientists for the work once we get to 95°W. Let me sum up for you what was done on the 110°W line.

Between Amy, Nuria and I (mostly Amy), 27 CTD’s were performed, 5 of them at almost the depth of the ocean (we stop 200m above the floor). 4 buoys were recovered and 4 new buoys were deployed. 2 buoys were visited and found to be fine. 1 buoy was visited and needed repairs, which were provided. The scientists saw the signatures of El Niño: warmer than normal sea surface temperatures by 1 degree, and a rainfall pattern that has shifted southward and south of the equator.

While the scientists are prepping for future work, the crew was getting their regular work done. And, in the further interest of safety (always #1 out here), we had a man overboard drill. We all mustered in our respective locations and watched out the window as a crew of four rescuers went out in the RHIB to retrieve the unfortunate soul adrift (a stuffed evacuation suit!). After bringing him/her aboard, they promptly took him/her to the Medical room where s/he was treated and released. All of this practice is great for honing the skills if they’re ever necessary. Let’s hope they never are.

Question of the Day: 

When was the first NOAA buoy deployed in the Pacific Ocean?

Answer of the Day: 

I will wait until I get emails again after the weekend. Keep writing!

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Dana Tomlinson: Day 8, March 8, 2002

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Dana Tomlinson

Aboard NOAA Ship Ka’imimoana

March 1 – 27, 2002

Date: Friday, March 8, 2002

Lat: 6.5°N
Long: 110°W
Seas: E/NE 2-5 ft.
Visibility: unrestricted
Weather: partly, occasionally mostly, cloudy
Sea Surface Temp: 78-82°F
Winds: E/NE 10-15 knots
Air Temp: 83-74°F

Do you remember when I said yesterday that today was all about barnacles? Well, as my beloved husband (I miss you honey!) likes to say during a disagreement, “I wasn’t exactly correct.” Actually, tomorrow is barnacle day as we’ll be reaching the vicinity of our first buoy later this morning. The ship will do a deep CTD cast and then we’ll move into position at first light to start the buoy operations. That should be exciting.

So, today is all about weather balloons! Sergio Pezoa, an employee of Environmental Technology Laboratory working with NOAA, showed me the ins and outs of weather balloons. As of a few days ago, Sergio has been deploying the balloons every 6 hours starting at 0Z (zero Zulu or GMT time), five times a day. The purpose of the weather balloons is to collect data (air pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction) in this El Niño zone, as one more measure that, all together, scientists look at to try to predict the El Niño condition. The weather balloons have two parts: the actual balloon that is filled with helium (it is much bigger than I expected it would be – almost the diameter of a child’s swimming pool) and the radiosonde. The radiosonde is the transmitter portion that is the communication device that transmits the data from satellites to the ship’s computer. It is battery powered with a charge that lasts about 3 hours. The balloon will burst before that and fall to the sea, already having sent its important information to earth. And, believe it or not, the entire thing, from balloon to string to transmitter to battery is ALL biodegradable. Amazing. I really enjoyed deploying it, too. When I let go, the balloon and radiosonde burst out of my hands, when I expected them just to fly away. It was lovely watching them sail, literally, into the sunset.

Question of the Day: 

You knew this was coming, huh? Above, I mentioned Zulu time or GMT. What is GMT and if it’s 9:00pm here in Mountain Time, what time is that Zulu or GMT?

Answer of the Day: 

Congrats to the folks who realized I spelled thermocline incorrectly (once again, I wasn’t exactly right!). Alyzza V. of San Diego was the first to tell me that thermocline is the layer in the ocean that separates the warm upper layers that are oxygen-rich from the cold lower layers of the ocean that are oxygen-poor. Important to this ship’s research since warm waters are what El Niño is all about!

Til tomorrow
🙂 Dana

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Dana Tomlinson: Day 7, March 7, 2002

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Dana Tomlinson

Aboard NOAA Ship Ka’imimoana

March 1 – 27, 2002

Date: Thursday, March 7, 2002

Lat: 8°N
Long: 110°W
Seas: waves 4-6 ft., swells 8-10 ft
Visibility: unrestricted
Weather: cloudy, partly cloudy
Sea Surface Temp: 27.6°C
Winds: 15 knots
Air Temp: 27.2°C

I was asked by a student in Mr. Whitham’s class in San Diego what it feels like to be on a ship. Today, it feels like a roller coaster!! The seas are really rolling, but at the risk of jinxing myself, I might be past my queasy moments. Which is good, because at times today we’ve had 10 foot swells and winds of up to 24 knots. It’s been a wild one.

Today, I did my first CTD with Amy looking over my shoulder. Like I said yesterday, this is very important work which cumulatively helps to predict the El Niño condition (which can cause millions of dollars in damage and take thousands of lives with the bad weather and droughts it brings), so I take it very seriously. There are many steps to remember in the collection of the water samples as well as the data. I will be working with Amy again before I do this on my own, so I feel confident that I can perform it all correctly. See the photo album for shots of the CTD casting being done by Amy and I.

I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge Larry Wooten. He is the technical specialist on board – he’s the fix-it man. And on this trip, I’ve been calling him the “most overworked techie in history.” Keep in mind that we are hundreds of miles from the nearest shop like Home Depot or Fry’s so we’ve got to have someone to depend on to fix things, and Larry has stepped up to the plate, big-time. Today, he was trouble-shooting our live video broadcasts, he completely removed and re-installed a new triggering mechanism on the CTD (it wasn’t firing the bottles closed properly), and he had to install new software onto a computer so that I could send my photos to you. And that’s just three things I know about! Great job, Larry – the Ka’imimoana is lucky to have you.

Questions of the Day: 

You’ll notice that I listed the SST and Air Temp above in Centigrade today. How does one change a Centigrade reading into a Fahrenheit reading? What would the readings for SST and Air Temp be in degrees Fahrenheit?

Answer of the Day: 

The other day I asked what SST stood for and many of you said Sea Surface Temperature, but Angelique D. of San Diego was first! Great job. And did you know that just by going down a few feet, the water temp gets colder? The ship has sensors that tell us SST and water temp at 3 meters. And of course, the CTD can tell the temp at depths in the thousands of meters. And the buoys along the 110°W line that we’ll be visiting have temperature sensors down the cables that anchor them to the bottom. But that’s a story for another day. 🙂

Tomorrow, we pull up our first buoy – it’ll be all about barnacles for me.

Til then! 🙂 Dana