Author: AOML Communications

March Numeric Nutrient Criteria Study Cruise collects data at Fowey Light for the Argo program. Image credit: NOAA

Numeric Nutrient Criteria Study Cruise

AOML scientists conducted a Numeric Nutrient Criteria Study cruise Wednesday and Thursday, March 18-19th in Biscayne Bay off of Broward and Miami-Dade Counties aboard the NOAA R/V Hildebrand. The study provides concurrent water column and coral reef status data for four coral assemblies off of Miami-Dade and Broward County. These results will be employed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to determine numeric nutrient criteria for the coastal waters of Southeast Florida.

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Uli Rivero and Erica Rule use a balloon as an explanatory prop during their NED talk. Image credit: NOAA

Science Communication Workshop

Jana Goldman, a science communicator and plain language trainer, traveled to Miami on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 to engage AOML employees in a workshop on how to communicate science effectively to non-science audiences. While participating in the science communications exercises, AOML staff learned a myriad of successful plain language techniques as well as effective methods to develop clear scientific messages.

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AOML Scientists Featured in Special Women’s History Month Issue of Oceanography Magazine

Women’s History Month is celebrated annually in March and pays tribute to the generations of women whose contributions made a historical impact on society. It is also a month to honor women who are currently working hard to make positive innovations and impressions on the world.

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Sailors from Team Alvimedica deploy a drifter in the Southern Ocean. Image credit: Amory Ross/Volvo Ocean Race

Drifter Program Catches a Lift to the Southern Ocean with the Volvo Ocean Race

If you’ve ever sailed aboard a ship in the coastal ocean, or checked a weather report before going to the beach, then you are one of many millions of people who benefit from ocean observations. NOAA collects ocean observations and weather data to provide mariners with accurate forecasts of seas, as well as coastal forecasts and even regional climate predictions. It takes a lot of effort to maintain observations in all of the ocean basins to support these forecasts, and NOAA certainly can’t do it alone. Partnerships are essential to maintaining a network of free-floating buoys, known as drifters, and NOAA’s latest partner is not your typical research or ocean transportation vessel: the six sailboats and crew currently racing around the world in the Volvo Ocean Race.

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Left: New Iridium antenna and housing. Right: Antenna installed aboard the CMA CGM Racine cargo vessel in Miami, FL, before the start of the January 2016 AX07 (Miami to Gibraltar) XBT transect.

New Antenna System Design Improves Reliability and Significantly Reduces Cost

Scientists and engineers from NOAA have successfully designed, built, and tested a new antenna system that dramatically increases data transmission reliability while drastically reducing operating costs. The new Iridium-based transmission system, developed by NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) & the Cooperative Institute for Marine & Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), has no restrictions on data format or size, allowing data from various ocean and land-based observation platforms to be transmitted more reliably and at a fraction of the cost of the older Inmarsat-C platform. Since completion, the Iridium system has been adopted on a number of Expendable Bathythermographs (XBTs) observation transects and have been simultaneously tested and implemented in other AOML observing systems.

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Fish species in NOAA’s Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, off Texas. Photo Credit: NOAA

Gulf of Mexico Marine Food Web Changes Over the Decades

Scientists in the Gulf of Mexico now have a better understanding of how naturally-occurring climate cycles–as well as human activities–can trigger widespread ecosystem changes that ripple through the Gulf food web and the communities dependent on it, thanks to a new study published Saturday in the journal Global Change Biology.

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CTD under sparkling clear blue water. Image credit: NOAA

February 2015 Western Boundary Time Series Cruise

AOML physical oceanographers Molly Baringer, Ulises Rivero, Pedro Pena, Andrew Stefanick, Grant Rawson, Jay Hooper and Francis Bringas conducted a Western Boundary Times Series cruise aboard the UNOLS R/V Endeavor on February 15, 2015. Molly Baringer, AOML Deputy Director, served as chief scientist and was supported by additional crew from the University of Puerto Rico. Scientists measured full water column values of salinity, temperature, and oxygen. Scientists also telemetered data from a series of moorings along the 26th north parallel for a joint NOAA and National Science Foundation program designed to monitor the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation current. Francis Bringas also conducted a fall rate experiment that consisted of deploying 200 XBTs from different launch heights.

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Professor Julio Morell of The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and AOML's Grant Rawson, watch the glider drift away after deploying it on February 6, 2015. Image credit: NOAA

Underwater Gliders Second Deployment

On February 6, 2015, AOML physical oceanographers deployed two underwater sea gliders from the University of Puerto Rico’s R/V La Sultana in hopes of improving prediction of hurricane intensity. This is the second deployment trial after two gliders had a successful first mission at sea from July-November 2014. The main goal of this project is to deploy a pilot network of underwater gliders in the Caribbean Sea and Tropical North Atlantic Ocean to help with hurricane intensity forecasting and provide valuable information about the role the ocean plays in tropical cyclone development.

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Miami residents enjoy a beautiful sunset over Biscayne Bay. Photo Credit: NOAA/AOML

NOAA Selects Biscayne Bay for Next Habitat Blueprint Focus Area

NOAA has selected South Florida’s Biscayne Bay as one of the next Habitat Focus Areas under NOAA’s Habitat Blueprint. Habitat Blueprint offers opportunities for NOAA to partner with organizations to address coastal and marine habitat loss and degradation issues. It provides a framework, which builds upon existing programs, prioritizes activities, and helps users act strategically and preventively [...]
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