Congratulations to Evelyn for finishing the internship and giving the wonderful presentation! Hope everything goes well in Costa Rica!

 Peter, maybe give us a heads up when you will be testing the plate! Perhaps I'll stop by to look and take some pictures.

It is the end of week 7, and it does feel like things are starting to wrap up. I met up with my mentors Francisco and Gernot this week to look over the work I've done so far and discuss what directions I might take my project. I have worked with a lot of different types of data so far and need to narrow the focus and pick a few things for the presentation.

 Just to resummarize my project, I have been analyzing wave glider data (as well as other data) from the May-June CANON experiment during which the Monterey Bay was surveyed with various autonomous platforms. Our group's wave glider instrument package is a novel platform equipped with CO2 gas analyzers (for measuring pCO2), a weather station (for measuring instantaneous wind speeds), pH electrodes, and also the typical CTD and oxygen sensors. The sensors on the wave glider are the same as in MBARI's Ocean Acidification (OA) moorings, and they were integrated into the wave glider platform by last year's intern.

The observations by the wave glider during the CANON experiment are interesting, because the highest sea pCO2 values ever observed in the region were found (>1000 ppm) during a strong spring upwelling event. Coupled with the strong winds during the upwelling, there were also correspondingly large CO2 fluxes out of the ocean. However, the high sea pCO2 and large fluxes were short lived (days). The advantage of using the wave glider is the high temporal and spatial resolution that is needed to capture these fast processes. With instantaneous data on CO2 and wind conditions, I can model how fast sea pCO2 levels are drawn down back to equilibrium just by gas exchange alone, getting an idea of whether biology or chemistry/physics is more important in regulating the sea pCO2. (I will be working on this model soon.)

The other part of my project is the validation of the wave glider data. Are the data from the wave glider reliable and comparable to other established forms of measurements? So far, I have also looked at CTD casts from the Fulmar cruise, pCO2 measurements from the Fulmar underway system, chlorophyll data from bottle samples, and Dorado AUV data. In my remaining weeks, I will need to figure out the best comparisons to make a convincing case that the wave glider can give trustable results. 

I can't believe how fast time is flying - another week is over! Brian will be back next week, so hopefully we can get back to work on making the DSG external! I've had a bit of inspiration, so I've started working on an external version of the DSG "Annotations" page. Some of the pages in the internal DSG will have to be left off/changed for the external DSG because they focus on quality control of the data in VARS and no one in the public cares about that! Not sure how that will work code-wise, but somehow some pages will be excluded from the external version. So I'm changing the goal of the page for the external version to be kind of a cool interactive embedded Google Maps map of the annotations. So that'll be my job next week, making that work! That and starting the powerpoint/paper (agh how is it that time already?!). Reading the API and the explanation pages of how to make the maps using Javascript makes me love Google even more - it's so well-organized and easy to understand! I love it. Makes my job much much easier.

3 weeks remain and I'm starting to feel the pressure. Converting the COAMPS wind data is every bit as difficult as expected. I've managed to write the binary files into arrays and now im creating a couple of functions to rotate the grid and data to true lat/lon orientation. From there i still have to average the data into 3-day composites (accounting for missing data) and then write the observations into geotiff and then ARC GRID files. If i dont have all of that finished by mid next week, i may be forced to abandon the COAMPS and move on with analysis of what I have.

I met with my mentor and we discussed analyzing the data to measure along-shore and cross-shore water movement, using marine geospatial ecology tools to find temperature fronts, and using zonal statistics to measure mean SST and chlorophyll within MPAs. Or at least figure out how to do all that and provide brief examples.

This internship is going to be over before we know it and I'm not ready for it to end!

Look at you Peter, first to post this week! 

This week has been pretty good for my project, but I am feeling the stress of the amount of time we have left.  The big news story for my project is that late last week, Jim had an idea to use data from the sensor Sam is working with to complement and essentially ground truth the data from the LISST-100X sensor data I am analyzing.  We have had several meetings to discuss this and my original project.  I anticipate receiving an Excel file from Danelle and/or Sam with timestamp information for the orders and genera that they have identified from the LISST-HOLO sensor this summer.  The idea is to see if there is enough data to make an effective timeseries and match it to the existing continuously collected data from the LISST-100X, to see if we can make any correlation between various combinations of the 100X channels and LISST-HOLO images, in an effort to better understand sensing capabilities of the 100X.  It would be fantastic to be able to ID a genus or even species of phyto or zooplankton bloom using LISST-100X data.  As of right now, I am continuing to look at the spatial and temporal variability of the size distributions for data from three different Dorado missions.

I spent most of the week creating and polishing my presentation. Monday, we had a behind-the-scenes tour of the aquarium. It was really great to be there when no people were around. The giant octopus was my favorite part. I gave my presentation this morning. Besides the computer freezing, I'm very pleased with how it went. I've had the most awesome summer working here! I'm very sad to say goodbye. But good luck everyone on the rest of your projects and presentations, I know they'll be great and I wish I was here to see them! I'll miss you all!

-Evelyn

Is it seriously Thursday already? Gosh....

Ok, so this week has been very productive. After the amazing tour behind the scenes of the Aquarium I got to work making sure I had EVERY single file needed to start the experiments with Diane, Jason, and Brandon. Made their resources perfect and all of that jazz so everything was ready on Wednesday for them to come in and get started. As of right now, I'm more than 1/2 way done gathering data from them which is amazing. So this weekend I will be processing the plankton results and seeing if everyone was consistent in their identification.
I've also started on my paper and presentation so that I can actually enjoy the trip to sea with Steve Haddock (yea, I'm officially going )

I'm sad to see Evelyn go but hopefully we actually go to San Francisco so I can get a little more time with her

This coming week I'm going to be feverishly working on analyzing and organizing everything. As well as getting things basically finished for the last week. It's exciting but sad that it's so close...
Oh! I'm also going to packing all of my stuff to move... not cool.

So basically, as of right now, I do not have any kinks which is good and makes my life so much easier... We'll see what next week brings.

Oops,
completely forgot about Confluence (as usual). STHe open house was amazing, I loved feeling part of MBARI!!People congratulated us all the time for the nice work done here and for the fantastic open house. The social media booth went very well, took pictures of happy people was fun and it definitely helped to recruit new followers on Facebook.
This was a very short week! On monday I spent my time processing the photos to post on Facebook. I started to think about my report, the structure etc because my mentor will be soon on holidays. On Wednesday, I went to the aquarium to meet their social media guru and it was a very nice meeting and I realized that (at a different scales) he is struggling the same way we are. I was really glad my mentor set up this meeting. I love the way she is always trying to offer me new opportunities!!
On Thursday I was working at Hopkins with my regular co-workers. Friday is off and this is my last weekend with me family, I am driving them back to SF on Monday. Glad to know I will be at the housing with you to fill in the gap. I am also working on my talk for tuesday.

Evelyn, we will definitely miss you!! Was a blast to have you around!
Sam, I am so jealous, would kill (well not really) to go back on board the WF! Enjoy every second!

Hi !!!

This thursday has been crazy, a lot of meeting, seminar,.. and I forgot about confluence. But now, here I am. This week has been very important to me,for several reason. The main one is that my family is in here, and now I am living toghether. Sam, Geraldine, Anna and Evelyn, thanks to be so good roommate, I enjoyed a lot the time there.
My project is working nice, this week I had a couple of meeting with my mentor and we had have important improvement in the model/stoqs tool. Now the tool exits and is working and it is really awesomehow how it compare the model data with in-situ measurement in a so easy way.
The next week I will like to show the tool to some people,Monique, John Ryan, to get some feedback from them. The presentation that I sent to the Physical Oceanographic Spanish Congress about my work in MBARI has been accepted, its a very small congres but its important to me.
Evelyn good luck in Costa Rica, I am sure that you will enjoyed it a lot !!!
Sam, I am jealous, lucky woman !!!!!

WHOOPS! Totally forgot about Confluence, this week has been so busy! Don't worry, it doesn't mean that I don't still want to update you all on my project. But my first piece of news is that I survived moving apartments I'm sitting in my new place in San Francisco! And we have internet already even though it hasn't been installed yet! Mystery, but wonderful

Anyway, on to science. I wrapped up the last of my major experiments on the laser this week, which were all for the purpose of estimating the CO2 detection limit (lowest concentration that we can measure) for the seagoing Raman system. The past setups I had used were all at higher pressures of CO2 and once I calculated what CO2 concentrations those pressures corresponded to, we realized that we were not going to get an accurate enough estimation of the system's capabilities with just those data. So, these experiments were done at low pressures with mixed CO2/N2 gas (which has a separate equation for calculating concentration in seawater than pure CO2), which allowed us to add a lower amount of CO2 overall. I had been a bit worried that I wasn't going to get the data we needed, but I think, apart from a few possible repeat experiments, that there should be enough to yield meaningful results. Wahoo! I have a few more analysis issues to sort out, but hoping that all will be well.

Evelyn, miss you already! Have a safe trip back to LA and then to Costa Rica!

Ohh, Anna, I get the Ramen reference now..teehee. Sorry, everyone, for the informal (2AM) confluence post.
Interestingly enough, the most work I got done this (last week now, I guess) week was on the off Friday, when I biked to work and back (turning into a popsicle on the way home since it was windy, foggy, and I ran out of energy halfway home since it was too close to dinner time!). Thursday was spent being frustrated about the direction my project was going (I had problems with expiring lab materials/fat, lazy copepods=possibly less RNA?? messing up results). Luckily, my mentor and I got together with Roman and talked a few things out. I have more work to do now, but my purpose for my project is now more clear, I think. I also got to watch a couple practice talks for the larval conference that some of my lab's members are going to. Oh, and dinner with the Aquarium's interns was GREAT. I think this should happen again in the following years since, after all, MBA and MBARI are sister institutions.
On Wednesday I had a great conversation with Patti and Jeff Drazen, who I had communicated with before over email in the past about an undergraduate project, so I was excited to finally meet him in person. He showed us some nice video from a baited camera (thresher shark and another type, plus a grouper and sculpin that were interested in eating the camera's plumb weight!
On Tuesday, Sam, Diane, and I talked to Marc Miller in the morning, thanks to George's awesome ability to put together meetings with professors that just happen to be in town.
Monday was amazing since we started our day with a wonderful breakfast AND an Aquarium visit...what more can I say...

Speaking of great internships, I watched a motorcycle race today thanks to tickets donated by Bill Kirkwood.

Oh, and I'm also sad that Evelyn just left today, and that I only got to practice my violin with her once!

Again, sorry for the super chatty confluence post.

Sorry for the late post.

Last week, I got outputs from our sea surface currents prediction model based on the GA coast HF radar data, but the predictions didn't quite agree with the observed HF radar data. Basically, we trained the prediction model with the data over the period between 2006 and 2010, generated predictions for 2011, and compared the predictions with the observed HF Radar data over 2011. However, the predictions were not very good. Especially, the model didn't work well on the shelf, where tidal current is a dominant factor of water flow. Since tides are periodic, we think the model should work better on the shelf, but it's opposite; the model works better in the Gulf Stream region. But, this also sort of make sense because Gulf Stream always flows northeastwards, and has not much variation. Anyhow, this week, I spent most of the time analyzing the outputs from our model to see why it doesn't give us good predictions on the shelf by checking residuals of EOF coefficients between observation data and predicted data as well as by checking whether other forcings like winds had an influence on the observed data (our predictions were generated without wind forcing). After the analysis, we (mostly my mentor) concluded that the prediction errors are not caused by wind forcing. So the next thing we will try would be to split the data into two: one inside the shelf, and the other outside the shelf, and to check if EOFs couldn't catch the energy of the dynamics from the data because there are mainly two big different motions: one is based on periodic sinusodes, and the other one is quasi-static (since Gulf Stream flows mostly northeastwards). Tomorrow, one of my advisors who is a physical oceanographer is coming to MBARI, so hopefully we discuss this issue with her and come up with a nice idea to move along.

Hello,

Sorry for the late post! Am I last?

Once again, I cannot believe how quickly time is passing! I am almost in sort of a panic mode over my project, as the deadline for a portion of my work has moved up. I found out that Clague's group needs a certain portion of the work to be completed so they can run an extra calculation for a conference abstract that is due on the 8th. Yikes! I need to turn things up a huge notch!

What an incredible week it was! So many wonderful things happened, but I will note just a few highlights semi-briefly:

Saturday:
Open House was a completely amazing experience! I was in the geology tent with MBARI's two geology groups. As I may have mentioned before, the groups were a little bit short-handed, so I was asked to stay there for the whole event. What a crazy, wonderful whirlwind, it was! I was in the tent with anywhere from 1-3 other geology people for the entire 5 hours, with 15-25 visitors in the tent at any one time. Everyone was so nice, and so interested in what MBARI was doing! How incredibly cool! A couple of times I mentally stepped back to take a breath, and looked around the tent at the scene before me. It was almost surreal!

Monday:
George, thank you for taking us to such a great breakfast spot, and following this up with very cool behind-the-scenes tour of the Aquarium! So fun! I had not been to the MBA in while, so I was very happy to be there with all of you guys!

Tuesday:
This was the day of our Jaine and Georgre Birthday Celebrations, with delicious cakes made by Justin, Anna, and others...Yum! The COSMOS outreach program took place in the afternoon. I always find it frightening to talk in front of groups for any reason, so this was really good practice. The students were really great. It would have been nice to have spent more time with them.

Wednesday:
In the morning, Audrey and I had a great chat with the day's seminar speaker, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen. He is involved with so many cool projects, and talked with us about things he was working on that had little to do with the seminar talk. Very interesting!

After lunch, my mentor and employer from Cabrillo College visited me at the Clague lab. He is one of the three people who wrote nice letters on my behalf, so I thought that he'd enjoy an afternoon meeting some of the people involved with my internship. He seriously enjoyed visiting with Dave Clague, Jenny Paduan, Ryan Portner, Charlie Paull, and hearing about all of the projects these teams have been conducting. He was actually pretty blown away! I didn't have a chance to show him exactly what I have been doing in the Clague lab, as we attended the seminar, and ran out of time. Perhaps he can visit again...

Thursday:
Evelyn gave us an awesome talk! I was really inspired by her presentation, and the way she carried herself, and delivered it. She definitely set the bar for the rest of us! I enjoyed meeting, Evelyn, and am sad to see her go. I wish her all the best with her adventures in Costa Rica!
Thursday was also the day of the Mentor/Intern BBQ at Connor's. Wow, what an incredible feast! You guys are all such great chefs! It looked like there was a great turn out of mentors, too! Great work!

Have a great week, everyone!
Good luck on your projects!
-Patti

Never fear Patti, I have you beat...
I've been continuing with the fluid analysis for various configurations. Its taking much longer than it should since both computers I've been using max out their CPU and crash when I queue up multiple simulations (bug in the software that I can't find a patch for...) I'm part way through an optimal tandem wing spacing study to determine minimum drag for in water use. Last week I was also able to finish another blended body design and run a course simulation on flow characteristics. I'm currently working on another model that optimizes for water impact. By the end of this week I plan to have selected one of the designs for more detailed analysis and prototyping.  Today I'm heading over to NPS with my mentor to look at their testing equipment and figure out a scale for the prototype. I'm also in the process of determining the maximum expected G force for the water impact study so I can order the appropriate accelerometer. Further plans for this week include doing confluence on Thursday...

 Also awesome BBQ!