Tag: oceans

What’s an ocean glider?

VIDEO: What’s an ocean glider? This is an outline in below two minutes. Transcript

Scientists at the moment are experimenting with utilizing gliders to find populations of spawning fish. The glider illustrated right here is outfitted with an acoustic receiver to “pay attention” for vocalizations—grunting sounds—made by some fish as they mass collectively to spawn within the U.S. Caribbean. The car information the geolocation of the sounds that it “hears” onto an onboard reminiscence card. Study extra.

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In 2009, a glider named the “Scarlet Knight” made historical past by crossing the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to Spain. Study extra.

An ocean glider is an autonomous, unmanned underwater car used for ocean science. Since gliders require little or no human help whereas touring, these little robots are uniquely suited to gathering information in distant areas, safely and at comparatively low price.

Gliders could also be geared up with all kinds of sensors to observe temperature, salinity, currents, and different ocean situations. This data creates a extra full image of what’s occurring within the ocean, in addition to tendencies scientists won’t in any other case be capable to detect from satellites or giant analysis ships.

Whereas there are various glider designs that use completely different strategies to maneuver via the water, all gliders share the power to journey far distances over lengthy intervals, with out servicing. Unmanned gliders pattern the ocean in locations the place it’s impractical to ship individuals, and at a fraction of the price, permitting us to gather information even in the course of a hurricane. It’s these traits together with developments in sensor applied sciences that make gliders more and more essential as instruments for gathering ocean information.

The glider illustrated on this animation is the Slocum glider. It could seem like a torpedo, however it doesn’t have propellors or an inner engine. As an alternative, it makes use of a pump to softly change its buoyancy over time. This permits the glider to slowly transfer up and down via the water. And because it does so, the massive fins protruding of the edges of the craft create carry to propel it ahead. It’s just like how a glider within the air works, besides the ocean glider can glide up as simply because it glides down.

Video Transcript

An ocean glider is autonomous: it travels via the ocean with out human assist. It’s pre-programmed with journey waypoints after which let out to gather ocean information for days, weeks, or months. Totally different sensors mounted on the glider accumulate completely different sorts of knowledge. This glider is fitted with an acoustic sensor to pay attention for and report noises made by fish throughout spawning season. After gathering information for a set time period, the glider completes its journey. The glider then surfaces and transmits its place so individuals can come choose it up. Mission full!

What’s a Excessive Seas Forecast?

map of high seas forecast areas

NOAA’s Excessive Seas Forecasts are marine climate forecasts ready for mariners and transmitted world wide in real- and near-real-time. Word: the above map i

Seafaring could be very harmful for ships at sea. For hundreds of years, little may very well be executed to make transport safer, as a result of unpredictability of the climate, the huge measurement of the ocean, and an absence of worldwide cooperation within the open ocean. Nevertheless, the 1912 sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic, with greater than 1,500 casualties, sparked world concern about security and requirements for ships at sea. This tragedy would result in new worldwide conventions that established security necessities and offered extra correct and standardized climate forecasts.

As we speak, Nationwide Meteorological and Hydrological Companies world wide present real- or near-real-time climate forecasts and information which can be transmitted globally. The World Meteorological Group’s (WMO) International Observing System depends on member international locations, which use their services on land, at sea, and in area through satellites to forecast climate situations. Collectively, these assets enable meteorological and different environmental observations on a world scale.

As a member of WMO, NOAA’s Nationwide Climate Service (NWS) gives Excessive Seas Forecasts for giant areas of the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The NWS additionally gives marine forecasts for U.S. coastal areas and the Nice Lakes, offshore waters, and a part of the Arctic Ocean. The NWS’s Unified Floor Evaluation of world climate additionally gives information on a posh set of floor observations. These forecasts from NOAA, in addition to predictions from different Nationwide Meteorological and Hydrological Companies world wide, can be found to anybody, and, most significantly, to all ships at sea.

What’s a present survey?

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An Operational Forecast System offers a nowcast and forecast (as much as 48 hours) of water ranges, currents, salinity, water temperatures, and winds for a given space. These methods are positioned in coastal waters and the Nice Lakes in important ports, harbors, and estuaries.

NOAA’s Heart for Operational Oceanographic Merchandise and Companies offers tidal present predictions to business and leisure mariners who depend on this data for protected navigation.  With the intention to present probably the most correct predictions attainable, NOAA should periodically resurvey numerous coastal and estuarine areas.  Survey areas are chosen based mostly on mariners’ navigation wants, oceanographic analyses, and the period of time that has handed because the final survey. Given trendy enhancements in measurement and computing know-how, these surveys vastly enhance the accuracy of tidal predictions. In 2017, for instance, NOAA concluded a three-year present survey of Puget Sound, Washington, to replace the area’s tidal present predictions. Previous to the survey, predictions had been based mostly on restricted quantities of information collected within the Nineteen Thirties-Nineteen Sixties.

To gather the info they want, NOAA scientists usually deploy Acoustic Doppler Present Profilers (ADCPs) to measure currents all through the water column at numerous areas for a interval of 1 to 4 months. The observations collected from the ADCPs are used to generate tidal present predictions at these areas.  Along with present measurements, NOAA typically deploys salinity, temperature, oxygen, and stress sensors at choose areas to trace the motion of assorted water lots. Whereas the mixed information is used to create higher tidal prediction fashions, additionally it is used to help the creation of NOAA Operational Forecast System (OFS) hydrodynamic fashions.  These fashions present short-term forecasts of water ranges, currents, water temperature, and salinity in coastal areas. 

Infographic Transcript: Coastal & Estuarine Present Surveys

Instrument Deployments: Annually NOAA measures ocean currents at completely different coastal and estuarine areas by deploying dozens of short-term devices.

Currents: Ocean currents describe the motion of water from one location to a different. Currents are noticed at depths all through the water column and are measured over a interval from one to 4 months.

Acoustic Doppler Present Profiler (ADCP): This instrument measures the currents by emitting beams of sound, which mirror off of particles within the water and again to the ADCP.

Harmonic Evaluation: After the ocean present measurements are collected, oceanographers obtain
the info after which analyze it via a pc program. A statistical course of
known as harmonic evaluation determines the half of the present attributable to the tides.
This “tidal present” can then be predicted at that location for a few years into the
future. Different components that affect the present, resembling wind, can’t be forecast for
various days and aren’t included within the prediction.

Tidal Present Predictions: Within the graph above, NOAA predicts at “Lovely Bay” that the tidal present will flood (stream inland) at 1 pm, slack (low present pace) at 4 pm, and ebb (stream out to sea) at 7 pm. The quickest currents seem at peak flood and ebb.

How are present predictions used? Because of NOAA tidal present predictions, kayakers trying to depart “Lovely Bay” know to keep away from the time of peak flood at 1pm after they could be paddling
towards the present. Tidal present predictions present important data for each
leisure and business marine navigation. Predictions of the tidal present might be
accessed on-line for 1000’s of coastal and estuarine areas.

 

Can we clear up, cease, or finish dangerous algal blooms?

A harmful algal bloom outbreak on Lake Erie viewed from space

Imagery of the Western Lake Erie dangerous algal bloom from September 26, 2017. The scum proven right here close to downtown Toledo stretched all the best way to Lake Ontario. This picture is from Landsat-8 (a NASA/USGS satellite tv for pc).

Dangerous algal blooms — also known as HABs for brief — happen when algae produce poisonous or dangerous results on individuals, fish, shellfish, marine mammals, birds, or different aquatic organisms. Blooms happen in marine and freshwater environments all through the world, with damaging ecological, social, and financial results.
So why can’t we clear up the algae and maintain this downside? Sadly, the reply just isn’t so easy. Dangerous algal blooms are a pure course of. There are data of HABs from early European colonists arriving to Florida within the 1500s. Nonetheless, analysis factors to a rise within the frequency and depth of algal blooms in fashionable instances as a consequence of environmental modifications brought on by people.

There are lots of examples of human actions that contribute to HABs: runoff from agriculture, dissolved chemical compounds launched into water provides through rainfall or irrigation, and effluent from sewage therapy vegetation all contribute to extra quantities of vitamins in our waterways. These vitamins are meals for algae. In housing developments, for instance, retention ponds are a typical place to see freshwater HABs. All this runoff results in the water system, ultimately making its solution to the ocean.

Certainly one of main missions of NOAA’s Nationwide Facilities for Coastal Ocean Science is to empower communities to take motion on HAB points by creating detection instruments and forecasts. NCCOS is concerned in mitigating dangerous algal blooms in quite a few alternative ways and thru a number of legislative measures. For instance, the Dangerous Algal Bloom Hypoxia Analysis and Management Act offers NOAA with a authorized mandate to check HABS, to mitigate their results, and to supply early warning for when and the place blooms will happen. NOAA companions with different organizations all through the nation, as nicely, to assist analysis by way of three funding alternatives:

  1. The Ecology and Oceanography of Dangerous Algal Blooms program offers funding for universities and different teams to take a look at the ecology and oceanography of HABS.

  2. The Monitoring of and Occasion Response to Dangerous Algal Blooms program focuses on a sensible method to strategies for testing applied sciences to detect toxins within the cells of the algae and characterize their abundance.

  3. The Prevention, Management and Mitigation of Dangerous Algal Blooms program focuses on what could be carried out to forestall individuals from coming into contact with HAB impacts, to raised inform the general public and to supply extra directed early warning merchandise for dangerous algal blooms.

Dangerous algal bloom assets, incessantly requested questions, and regional data can be found through the Nationwide Ocean Service HAB portal.