Tag: Global Ocean Observing System

Lights in Puerto Rico. Image credit: NOAA

Puerto Rico Underwater Glider Mission 2016

On Thursday July 21st, PHOD began its fifth underwater glider mission in the Caribbean Sea. Two underwater gliders, SG609 and SG630, were successfully deployed off of Puerto Rico. The deployment was carried out by AOML researchers on board the R/V La Sultana with the help of personnel from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez (UPRM). The refurbished gliders have sensors that measure temperature, salinity, oxygen, Chlorophyll-a, and turbidity. This deployment is the beginning of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season deployment, with two more gliders scheduled for deployment in the tropical North Atlantic in August.

Read Full Article
The R/V Roger Revelle docked in Fremantle, Australia prior to the GO-SHIP cruise. Image credit: NOAA

AOML Oceanographers Collect Coast to Coast Measurements on the GO-SHIP Indian Ocean Cruise

During the months of March and April, AOML joined an international team of oceanographers to actively sample the Indian Ocean in support of the Global Ocean Ship-Based Hydrographic Investigation Program (GO-SHIP), an initiative to measure and investigate the ocean basins from coast to coast and from top to bottom. Aboard the R/V Roger Revelle, the team transected the Indian Ocean from the Antarctic northward into the Bay of Bengal, collecting seawater samples at 113 stations as part of a multi-decadal effort to measure various ocean properties, including temperature, salinity, nutrients, carbon and other gases.

Read Full Article

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 securely and at a fraction of the cost of the older Inmarsat-C platform.

Read Full Article
NOAA's Ship of Opportunity Program coordinates a fleet of vessels that collect surface ocean CO2 measurements across the world's oceans. Image credit: NOAA

AOML-led Carbon Dioxide Sampling Effort Helps Quantify the Ocean’s Role in Global Carbon Budget

Researchers with the Global Carbon Budget released their annual update for the global carbon budget in December 2015, revealing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels increased slightly in 2014 (+0.6%), but are projected to decline slightly (by est. -0.6%) in 2015. The global oceans serve as a natural buffer, offsetting increased emissions by absorbing an estimated 27% of human-produced CO2 from the atmosphere in 2014. Data collected, in part, from long-term surface ocean CO2 monitoring efforts, funded by NOAA’s Climate Program Office and the Ocean Acidification Program, indicate that the oceans removed about 10.7 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere in 2015.

Read Full Article