Tag: EPIC

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Jane Temoshok, October 14, 2001

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jane Temoshok
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
October 2 – 24, 2001

Mission: Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes
Geographical Area: Eastern Pacific
Date: October 14, 2001

Latitude: 15º S
Longitude: 89º W
Air Temp: 19.2.0º C
Sea Temp: 19.3º C
Sea Wave: 2 – 4 ft.
Swell Wave: 4 – 5 ft.
Visibility: 8 miles
Cloud cover: 8/8

Science Log

Wes Atkins & Robert Schaaf- Weather Balloons, University of Washington

Wes and Robert study the atmosphere. To do this they send up a big helium balloon that has a small box dangling from a string. In the box has an antenna that can communicate with up to 8 satellites, and several sensors that measure things like temperature, pressure, and moisture. The fancy name for this balloon and sensor package is called a radiosonde. The information that comes back to their computers is called an upper-air sounding. The data is graphed to show what’s going on in that atmosphere, on that day, in that location. Wes and Robert are part of a team that launches balloons every 3 hours! The idea is that the more data they collect the more accurate their “profile” or picture of the atmosphere will be. Also, they look for changes in the atmosphere as the ship moves along its track.

Wes Atkins & Robert Schaaf from University of Washington study the atmosphere.
TAS Jane Temoshok readies a weather balloon for launch.
Paul from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
TAS Jane Temoshok holds up a weather balloon and its attached radiosonde.
Jane launches the weather balloon.

Another thing Wes and Robert are also interested in the sizes of raindrops. Have you ever been out in a light, misty rain? Compare that feeling to the big fat raindrops during a thunderstorm. What makes some rain drops tiny and some raindrops really big? For this experiment they use a special paper soaked in a chemical called “meth blue”. They put this out for a short period of time in a plastic tub. When the rain falls on the blue paper it leaves a mark which can be measured using a special tool – like a round ruler. They examine the sizes of the drops to learn about the clouds from which they came.

Travel Log

As you can tell from the data above, the sea is remaining pretty calm. The weather changes constantly from windy and gray to bright and clear. Every half hour is different. Today I saw a beautiful rainbow off in the distance.J (No pot of gold though.L) Still haven’t seen any other ships out here. We are very much alone at sea. This suits some people on board just fine. The crew (meaning the people who work on the boat all year long) really enjoy the solitude. They generally get news via email and whenever the ship puts into port, which can be anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months. That’s a long time to go without hearing from your loved ones! There is a phone on board, but it costs $10 for just 3 minutes! There isn’t any TV on board but they do show 2 videos every night on a big screen in the lounge. There is a store on the ship where you can buy popcorn and candybars for the movie. Dinner is served really early (by my clock anyway) at 4:30! The kitchen closes by 5:30 so you better get your food by then or your on your own. The food is excellent, with a printed menu each day. I think the hardest working people onboard are the cooks! Can you imagine serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 50 people everyday? And they give us lots of choices too. Tonight we could choose from a complete turkey dinner (just like on Thanksgiving), Italian spaghetti with sausages, or salmon loaf.

Question of the day: How do updrafts affect the size of a raindrop? Do you think the size changes? If so, which way?

Keep in touch,
Jane

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Jane Temoshok, October 13, 2001

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jane Temoshok
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
October 2 – 24, 2001

Mission: Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes
Geographical Area: Eastern Pacific
Date: October 13, 2001

Latitude: 11ºS
Longitude: 91ºW
Air Temp: 19.7 ºC
Sea Temp: 19.9 ºC
Sea Wave: 3-4 ft.
Swell Wave: 3 – 4 ft.
Visibility: 8 – 10 miles
Cloud cover: 3/8

Science Log

Energy from the Sun

The sun is the source of all energy on the Earth. The sun gives us this energy in the form of light and heat. Where does all that energy go? Why? How can it be measured? These are some of the questions many of the scientists on board are asking.

Toby Westberry and Olga Polyakov are scientists that have 2 instruments to help them understand how solar energy behaves in the ocean. The first is the SPMR which is a tool used to measure how much light penetrates the water. The more light = the more heat. You can see in the photo that it is a small black device attached to a long cord.

Temoshok 10-13-01 ucsbsbmrlaunch
Scientist Toby Westberry holds the SPMR, a tool used to measure how much light penetrates the water.

Toby and Olga lower the SPMR over the side and let it sink to 300 meters. Then they reel it back in just like a fishing pole. It tells them the “color” (wavelength) of the light at different depths. They do this over and over again in different locations in the ocean. Why? We know that the ocean water is not the same temperature in all places on the planet. Can you think of why this might be?

Well Toby and Olga know that there are tiny living organisms in the ocean that play a role in how warm or cool the temperature is. They are called phytoplankton. It seems that the more phytoplankton there is near the surface of the water, the more heat is trapped there.

Here’s an excellent explanation from Mrs. Richards of what’s happening that might help you to understand the process:

Imagine a nice clear swimming pool. The sun’s heat energy can penetrate all the way to the bottom of the pool because the water is so clear. Whatever heat energy hits the pool will be dispersed throughout the water somewhat evenly. Makes sense, right?

Now imagine that the pool has a layer of scum and algae at the top. Face it, you just haven’t done a very good job at cleaning the pool, and your allowance just isn’t big enough to make the job worthwhile. Now, the sun’s heat energy can’t pass all the way to the bottom of the pool because the scum is blocking the light. The very top of the pool water is going to capture almost all of the sun’s heat energy, and the bottom layers of water will be darker and colder. Imagine how the temperature of the water will be affected by the amount of scum in the water.

Knowing how much phytoplankton is hanging around would certainly help understand how the sun’s energy is being used. For this experiment they use a CTD. (Boy they sure use a lot of abbreviations for things!) This instrument is really big and needs a big machine called a winch to lift it in and out of the water.

Temoshok 10-13-01 ucsbctd
The CTD is lowered in and out of the water by a winch.

It has 12 tubes that fill up with water, each at a different depth.When the CTD is back on the ship, Toby and Olga fill labeled plastic bottles with the water.

Temoshok 10-13-01 ucsbctdcoll
Toby and Olga fill labeled bottles with the water collected at each depth.

Then their work begins. First they run all the water samples through a filter to figure out how much phytoplankton was in the sample.

Temoshok 10-13-01 ucsbolgalab
Scientist Olga Polyakov works with the water samples in the lab.

Remember each tube on the CTD took in water at a different depth. So each bottle will tell a different story. They use this information to create a data graph which is used with other information to tell how the sun is heating the ocean.

Travel Log

Sea birds! I don’t know how they do it or where they came from but all of a sudden 5 “boobies” showed up over the ship. What was amazing is that they hardly ever flap their wings, yet they fly as fast as the ship. The ship is moving forward at about 10 miles an hour and has big engines to push it. These birds just seem to glide along over us. Beautiful!

Temoshok 10-13-01 bird
A booby flies over NOAA Ship RONALD H. BROWN.

Question of the day: What is an updraft and what causes it?

Keep in touch,
Jane

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Jane Temoshok, October 11, 2001

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jane Temoshok
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
October 2 – 24, 2001

Mission: Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes
Geographical Area: Eastern Pacific
Date: October 11, 2001

Latitude: 4 ºS
Longitude: 95 ºW
Air Temp: 21.0 ºC
Sea Temp: 19.0 ºC
Sea Wave: 1 – 2 ft.
Swell Wave: 3 – 4 ft.
Visibility: 10 miles
Cloud cover: 8/8

Science Log

Clouds

Today I met with meteorologist Dr, Taneil Uttal from ETL (Environmental Technology Lab) in Boulder, Colorado. She is head of a group that has done cloud studies in the Arctic. On this trip one of the things Dr. Uttal wants to determine is how similar marine clouds are to Arctic clouds. To do this she and her associate Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer. The whole trailer is on the deck of the RON BROWN. Think of the trailer as a big package of instruments. Duane’s job is to keep the machinery running. In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.

Dr. Taneil Uttal from ETL (Environmental Technology Lab) in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Taneil Uttal from ETL (Environmental Technology Lab) in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Uttal's associate, Duane Hazen.
Dr. Uttal’s associate, Duane Hazen.
Dr. Uttal and Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer.
Dr. Uttal and Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer.
In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.
In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.

Here is how Dr. Uttal explains what’s going on:

What is a cloud?
________________

A cloud is gazillions of tiny water droplets or ice crystals floating together up in the sky. Some clouds make rain and snow. Some clouds do not. In EPIC we are looking at both kinds of clouds.

What is a Radiometer?
_____________________

Think of a pokemon which has a special power that no other pokemon has. There are many things in the world around us that are just like that. For instance tiny droplets of water floating in the air are beaming certain energies that only water droplets have. If we know what the water droplet energy is like (and we do!), we can measure it and find out how much water there is in a cloud. A radiometer is a special instrument that we have here on the RON BROWN for measuring the special energy of a water droplet so we always know how much water is in the clouds over the ship. The energy of a water droplet can be named by how fast it is. A water droplet has three energies, 20 GHz, 32 GHz and 90 GHz. A GHz is 1,000,000,000 cycles per second.

What is a radar?
_________________

A radar is different from a radiometer because instead of looking for natural energy from something like a water droplet, it beams out its own energy, bounces it off of things in the sky (like water droplets in a cloud), and measures the reflected energy. By looking at the reflected energy, the radar can tell you things about a cloud that are different then what the radiometer tells you. It can tell you about how high a cloud is, how big the droplets are, and how fast the droplets are falling. The radar energy is 35 GHz.

What do you get when you look up with a radar and a radiometer?
_______________________________________________________________

When you put the data from a radar and radiometer together, you can figure out even more things, like how many cloud droplets there are, where the water is located in the cloud, and get an even better guess of how big the droplets are.

What does all this information tell you?
________________________________________

Right now people do not know very much about how clouds reflect sunlight from the sun, reflect warmth that is coming up from the earth, and change things like the temperature on the surface where we live. These things will change depending all the cloud height, how much water it has, how big the droplets are, and how fast they are falling. In EPIC, we want to know which kinds of clouds might make the ocean warmer, and which might make the ocean colder. This can have a big effect on where fish and other ocean animals might want to live and what kind of weather happens over the ocean.

Dr. Uttal is a scientist on board but she is also a mother and wife back in Colorado. Taniel and her husband Rusty, have 2 children – Kalvin, 6th grader at Baseline Middle School and Miranda, a 4th grader at Flatirons Elementary School.

Travel Log

Today I spent time on “the bridge” of the ship. This is the area that controls all the functions of the ship. The captain and his officers are responsible for all that goes on, much like the principal of the school is in charge. The best view can be had from the bridge and there are video cameras that look out over all the decks. The highlight was seeing a pod of porpoises swimming nearby. So graceful! I’m going to keep my eye out for whales.

Question of the Day: What is the fastest creature living in the sea?

Keep in touch,
Jane

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Jane Temoshok, October 1, 2001

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jane Temoshok
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
October 2 – 24, 2001

Mission: Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate Processes
Geographical Area: Eastern Pacific
Date: October 1, 2001

I wanted to take a moment to say hi and tell you that all is fine here (At least I think it is and I haven’t heard otherwise from anybody else). It’s quite an interesting group of people on this mission. Very focused, all with their own agendas. Everyone has bent over backwards to be nice to me. Some very intriguing science happening!

Of course my mind is reeling with learning it for myself and thinking about translating it into English for my students. Speaking of students, today we had
the most wonderful school visit! It was all arranged by Jose (Deputy Director of Ops) in a VERY short amount of time. It was a small private school run by
2 sisters (siblings, not nuns). It is an immersion type school where subjects are taught in both Spanish and English so as to learn the English language.

Preschoolers read us a story, 3rd graders sang us a song, and high schoolers are very excited about coming up to the ops center next week for a field trip. They have internet access and Dr. Kermond invited them to log on the live streams. He was so excited by the video he shot, he can’t wait to edit it as he sees it in his head. It will be great.

Tommorrow we are going up in the C130. It will be a 9 hour flight along 95W and we will go directly over the RON BROWN and communicate by radio with them! I’m a tad nervous about it but am excited none the less. Wish me luck.

I have several digital shots that are wonderful! The ops center is an amazing assortment of equipment, but it smells funny and has lots of mosquitos! However, Hualtuco is fabulous! Very romantic.

Keep in touch,
Jane