18
THURSDAY 15TH MARCH For full conference programme and abstracts, visit the Oceanology website.
OCEANOBSERVATIONAND FORECASTING
CHAIRED BY: ZDENKA WILLIS, DIRECTOR – NOAA INTEGRATED OCEAN OBSERVATION LOCATION: SOUTH GALLERY, ROOMS 3/4
AM SESSION 09:15
09:30– 10:00
Chair: Justin Manley, Teledyne Benthos
Introduction Zdenka Willis, Director of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Program
Ocean Surface Salinity from Space: Early Results from the Aquarius/SAC-D Mission
Eric Lindstrom, Head of Oceanography, NASA Aquarius, an ultra-sensitive L-Band microwave Radiometer/Scatterometer (active/passive) instrument, was launched aboard the Argentine SAC-D mission on June 10, 2011. Aquarius began collecting salinity data on 25 August 2011. It produces a map of the global ocean surface salinity every week. A goal of the mission is to determine surface salinity to an accuracy of 0.2 PSU at spatial scale of ~100 km by averaging 4 weekly maps into a single monthly map. The entire Aquarius team has been very pleased with the early results – mainly because the difficulty of the measurement suggested that it might be 6-12 months before useful data could be made available to the scientific community. In fact, the first weeks of data showed that Aquarius will deliver a spectacular view of surface salinity and that the initial algorithms are producing recognizable maps of global surface salinity. This talk will briefly describe the theory behind measuring ocean salinity from space and the challenges associated with mission design and ancillary data collection to enable actual recovery of the subtle microwave signals. Results from the first 6 months of the mission will be summarized. Some features to be described include the signatures of major river systems on the open ocean, the differences between the major ocean basins, and surface salinity features resulting from major precipitation events. Some of the research objectives of the mission will be described including a major salinity process study beginning in 2012 in the North Atlantic Ocean. Operational utilization and applications of the new salinity data will be articulated.
10:00– 10:25
Slocum Glider - Persistent Ocean Observation
Clayton Jones, Senior Director, Teledyne Webb Research ‘The projects that I have always liked best are the ones conceived on the spur of the moment by an inquisitive individual. We try to reserve twenty percent of our Slocums to pursue such sudden inspirations. They are generally the most exciting; they evolve in unexpected ways and reveal new dimensions of the unknown about the ocean.’
Henry Stommel, The SLOCUM Mission, 1989.
Abstract Two decades have passed since Stommel’s futuristic article popularized Doug Webb’s underwater glider concept. Stommel’s imagination was sparked by the opportunity gliders provided to broaden our understanding of the oceans and perhaps even more important to him, by the potential it had to draw peoples interest and excitement for ocean dynamics.
The ongoing collaboration between Teledyne Webb Research (TWR) and Rutgers University highlight the status of the technology today along with examples of three main mission objectives: polar regions, urban shelves, and long duration transects approximating the course of the Challenger expedition of 1872-76. A Slocum G2 flight, en route from Iceland to the Canary Islands, draws together the International Consortium of Ocean Observing Labs (I-COOL) continuing a focus of international and educational outreach.
Certainly, gliders have gone from a notebook entry to become an integral part of the early adopter’s oceanographic toolbox. With the advent of procurements of Slocum gliders in large numbers by both the US Navy and the Ocean Observation Initiative (OOI) we are on the cusp to realizing Stommel’s vision of fleets roaming the oceans.
Slocum Glider; Expanding the Capabilities, Clayton Jones, Doug Webb, Teledyne Webb Research (TWR), Falmouth, MA
Scott Glenn, Oscar Schofield, John Kerfoot, Josh Kohut, David Aragon, Chip Haldeman, Tina Haskin, Alex Kahl, Eli Hunter, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
10:50– 11:15
11:15– 11:40
10:25– 10:50
Plankton Image Analysis
Charles Cousin, President, Bellamare Current technologies available for the study of marine organisms remain limited in comparison to the technologies available to physical oceanographers (high resolution, high- speed data acquisition rate and rapid analysis). Even though nets technologies have become quite sophisticated and the use of Multiple Opening Closing Net systems enable discrete vertical sampling coupled with detailed environmental data, such samples still require the task of being processed manually – a time-consuming and costly effort.
To address these issues, Bellamare, LLC has designed a towed, high-resolution digital imaging system, capable of sampling large volume of water at once, sufficient for accurate quantification of meso-zooplankton in their environment. The instrument captures images of organisms in situ and informs about the precise position and time of each organism as well as their spatial and vertical distribution. It also simultaneously captures environmental data of the organisms surroundings.
Images acquired are high resolution, enabling clear identification of organisms (e.g. larvaceans, gelatinous zooplankters, chaetognaths, larval fish), often to family or generic level. Moreover when towing the instruments at 5 knots, 162 liters of water are imaged every seconds, which is greater than an order of magnitude improvement over other imaging systems.
Bellamare, LLC has partnered with Traklogik Corporation to automate plankton recognition, enabling fast data analysis of collected images. Such a tool allows for increase sampling frequencies, leading to better taxa monitoring and eventually leading to a greater capacity for improved scientific inquiries.
For classification, the newly developed software utilizes a unique combination of semi- analytical methods for generalization of image patterns, with the diversity-oriented recognition technology based on Radial-Based Neural Network, with a dedicated super- compact and energy efficient processor allowing for real-time applications.
In this presentation, we provide examples of images captured, show the first plankton- recognition results and discuss methods of mathematical and computational approach.
Break & Exhibition
A UV-LED Based Optical Fiber Biofilm Sensor: Design, Calibration, and Field Application
Matthias Fischer, Scientist, IFM-Geomar An optical fiber-based biofilm sensor has been developed in order to dynamically detect biofilm formation of bacteria and unicellular microorganisms in their natural marine environment. The device is based on the detection of natural fluorescence utilizing the intrinsic amino acid tryptophan of microorganisms constituting the biofilm. Promising sensor head geometries were modeled and optimized in terms of the spatial arrangement of the entire optical system and of the light emission and collection characteristics. The sensor head design is capable of detecting biofilms grown on a large surface of about 1 cm2 (patent pending: Fischer, Friedrichs, Wahl; DE 102011101934.4). The intrinsic fluorescence originating from biofilms disposed on a UV transparent substrate is excited by a 280 nm UV LED. The emitted fluorescence is collected and guided by 540 optical fibers to a photomultiplier tube operating in photon counting mode. Interference filters are utilized to spectrally separate the 350 nm emission from background and scattered excitation light. Calibration measurements show that tryptophan can be detected in the nanomolar range and at low cell coverages down to < 4000 bacteria cells/cm2. A wide dynamic range enables one to study biofilm growth from the first attachment of cells up to complex biofilms. In first field experiments, biofilm formation dynamics has been continuously monitored by exposing the sensor to Baltic Sea water over a period of several weeks. During these experiments, subsamples were collected for a comparison of the biofilm sensor readout with fluorescence microscopy images. Additionally, the composition of the bacterial community has been analyzed by fluorescence in situ hybridization using Cy3-labeled oligonucleotide probes. Overall, the biofilm sensor measurements clearly proved that straightforward continuous monitoring of biofilm formation in natural habitats is feasible. Moreover, the sensor holds potential for deep sea deployment.
Programmes may be subject to change.
Conference programme sponsored by:
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