## Scientist/Platforms Meeting ## ## Friday Feb 25 14:00-15:00 Harbor View ## Chavez, Ryan, Scholin ## Chaffey, Headley, Mellinger, Zhang ## Nominal Agenda - Discussion on science initiatives at MBARI - Major science programs - Major science questions - Experiments and measurements needed - Relevant platforms programs - State of the art - MBARI activities - New developments - Future Interactions: Ideas for a science/engineering working structure ## Notes - Talked about HAB, CIMT data, interesting toxic bug/bloom - Saw it from John Martin - Bug fragile, turns to slime, blooms in certain conditions Interactions: technical councils scientists historically form ad hoc collaborations; Science has done this big picture stuff - Ken Johnson made docs, Scholin, Ryan, Chavez: Harmful Algal Blooms; McGill What about proposal process Science efforts have been cross-engineering, big science themes. How did IEG deal with other groups? We are still matrixed, from science perspective, science needs all groups. There is a need to stitch together a consistent big picture. The science questions are the glue that binds the technology questions. Need big picture science system view. Let's get organized and DO something, and see what has already been done: what are the big science themes? Low pH Ocean Fate and transport of organic carbon Benthic Pelagic Coupling Biogeochemical Cycling Will scientists organize themselves along these themes? Now is a good time; science may be primed to organize in this way. Ryan Harmful Algal Blooms->spatial/temporal dist of phytoplankton->other forms of plankton This group interested in phytoplankton Fuels food web, kills things Plankton Oceanography Role of primary producers in ... Bacteria depend on products of primary producers, may also condition things for phytoplan larvae subject to same environ as phytoplankton These populations change: intrinsic: eat & grow; behavior physics (affect growth and movement) what affects the changes and variablitiy How does it affect food web subcategories: resting stages live in sediment, come up in upwelling , seed blooms, chemistry, we could even take a single organism (psuedonichea): cuts through many levels of the What drives these events? How do we do things now? satellite images, remote surface observations timeseries (temp, sal, current, phyto proxies ) proxies (ratio of color bands) do more bands help? accurate to 30% at measureing chlorophyll within first optical depth 0.5-10 m depending on Optical depth measurement (m) 1/k Fluorescence 30% affected by physiology, plants have sunglasses (attenuate fluorescence w/ photo resist pigments) carbon:chlorophyll ratio varies over 100:1 range can't measure number of particles well: its a mixture of parts, current proxies are bulk measurements flow cytometry: uses lasers sends through small volume, sort by optical chars, work best for high abundance, small things, sends one by one thru can track nitrate, pCO2. not mature enough to stay out long; ~ 1 yr with more/less attention. salinity sensors from 0-40m hard fouled by organisms still use ships, AUVs to measure spatial variability thin layers (up to 10 cm) with very high concentrations of organisms (10-1000x surrounding water) are they distinct from thicker layers? phyto layers are everywhere theres enough light and nutrients; sit along pycnocline chlorophyll max not necessarily highest particle layer layers are everywhere if in layers, affects how it gets into food webs and how they die. why layers? it's easier to find a layer? generally meas bulk properties; major prob: identifying counting bugs: can't push forever on bulk measurements: need to sample and microscopically count and ID using genetic markers as proxies that carry other information. We want to acheive a nested suite of measurements. using probe arrays to replace some microscopy; requires new units and what you see is not always what's there: e.g. toxins (molecules) analysis is slow (i hour /meas) limited resources, need to take cues from bulk measurements-> adaptive sampling mclane h20 sampling: can tell it when to sample modeling: needed to interpret between point measurments today we use bulk measurements and h20 sampling to could you use more samples? not enough hours in the day to look at more samples? can look for many species at once (ESP, med tech, other automated chemical analysis) still limited by data collection rate of these systems. plate of 100 doable, but not done now. 20 samples a day takes about three people big picture sounds like AOSN...what did sci think of that? first demo of having lots of hw in ocean, exposed issues of data inundation, data qc, need to make platforms robust (biofouling, self calibrating, russ davis sal sensors, glider data, M1 surface sensor fouling,) if we want AOSN-like system along coastal US (sensors, models, model->QC, can't have too many people for QC, must be autonomous, model detects problems and events) first step in event detection should be verifying that system is working correctly Is AOSN a good vision of the future? it might be, multi sensor, system integrity must come before event detection weather people have large analagous observing networks. only respond to hurricanes, etc. But they have a good grid and models to know when to deploy planes, eg. DART array, siesmometer network Need to be good at *detecting* (and then *predicting*) harmful algal blooms may never be able to do more than 2-3 days in advance weather guys are getting so they can do pretty good 10 day forecasts event response note: o'reilly discussions centered on HAB, how to detect fronts. That is a very detectable event, has impact Francisco draws picture: CODAR (now 150 km range, loose resolution at short range, for oil spill tracking, water quality, prop 40, IOOS 7 tenets, managed by coastal conservancy, state $, 5 years, who will operate after 5 yrs) nested approach to system: codar, moorings, glider/auv transects (ea mooring has AUV, a la relay, $$$$) does study of longer term change require this huge array? Kurt Collins (NPS) working up integrated transport between moorings over 10 yrs geostrophic currents slope of sea level (looking at temp surfaces indicated by tstrings) flow results from density gradient (density gradients changes sea level) corriolis force creates right anlge motion ARGO floats: 10 days at depth, come up profiling and telemeter, want to have them on 3 degree grids. $25 K or less 1500-2000 out there now can make measurements over huge areas. Deployed in biodegradable cardboard. platforms has a tough job: we have a portfolio of platforms, must make vision and informing decisions about how/if we use assets? do we inform, decide, report facts, recommend? (this would be a good off site discussion topic) Marcia proposal call: science proposals to use ocean observing assets. Trades between few big complex $$ assets and more, cheaper, smaller assets. Ship time is $$, durability of instruments and platforms: interesting economic trades idea: biofouling protection built into platform Actions: get and review science documents (ken may have sent out not too long ago)