SOCCOM News

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TUESDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2016

C21C: Variability in the Arctic and Antarctic: Sea Ice, Ocean, and Atmosphere Interactions I Posters
08:00 - 12:20
Moscone South - Poster Hall

Peering into the insides of a machine can be a useful way to learn about how it works. MBARI researchers Ken Johnson and Hans Jannasch created a transparent version of a profiling float, an instrument that makes biogeochemical measurements in the ocean, for educational purposes. To make the clear float, Jannasch collected old, discarded parts at MBARI and from partners at the University of Washington, and replaced the yellow outer casing of the float with a transparent PVC tube.

The inner parts are labeled and there are two cutaway elements—one to see the flow-cell, a device that allows seawater to be pumped over the sensors and shields the pH sensor from light, and another to see the bladder that inflates and deflates to allow the float to sink to the bottom and rise through the upper 2,000 meters of the open ocean, collecting measurements along the way. Jannasch, hailing from Germany, painted the cutaways red, a technique he remembers from his childhood when he saw an exhibit of a train that was cut in half in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

Antarctic sea ice is constantly on the move as powerful winds blow it away from the coast and out toward the open ocean. A new study shows how that ice migration may be more important for the global ocean circulation than anyone realized.

A team of scientists used a computer model to synthesize millions of ocean and ice observations collected over six years near Antarctica and estimated, for the first time, the influence of sea ice, glacier ice, precipitation and heating on ocean overturning circulation. Overturning circulation brings deep water and nutrients up to the surface, carries surface water down, and distributes heat and helps store carbon dioxide as it flows through the world’s oceans, making it an important force in the global climate system. The scientists found that freshwater played the most powerful role in changing water density, which drives circulation, and that melting of wind-blown sea ice contributed 10 times more freshwater than melting of land-based glaciers did.

Melissa Miller, a technician deploying SOCCOM floats from a GO-SHIP cruise on the R/V Investigator, offers her perspective on the brave new world of autonomous observations. Read More: http://melissatruth.com/i-for-one-welcome-our-new-float-overlords/