Learning about physical oceanography through dance

A visit of 5th and 6th graders from Escondido to the MOD labs and the Scripps campus this past Saturday marked the end of an unusual class setting: Learning about physical oceanography through dance. Over several sessions in the past few weeks, the students heard about ocean physics and ocean observations from physical oceanographers Larry Pratt and Gunnar Voet. In between the lessons, the students, together with their dance teacher Roxanne Rojas de Blanco, came up with dance moves to transform what they had just learned into a choreography. With a lot of creative energy the students danced ships in stormy seas and subsurface oceanographic moorings knocked over by strong currents.

Dancing wave orbits.

Larry Pratt answering student questions.

During their Scripps visit, the students carried out tank experiments to learn about density in the ocean. To put into action what they had learned about moored observations, they tested an acoustic release. A walk across the campus ended on the Scripps pier with seal, leopard shark and sting ray sightings.

Visiting the test pool at Scripps.

Students observing dense water plumes in tank experiments on ocean density.

Sending a ping through the acoustic deckset…

…and making sure the acoustic release responds.

Many thanks to Roxanne at A Step Beyond and our colleague Larry Pratt from WHOI for organizing this workshop, and to the National Science Foundation for financial support through our Samoan Passage research project!

BLT Test Moorings Recovered

Earlier this year in September we deployed two moorings in our backyard in the San Diego Trough. The goal of the mooring deployments was twofold: First, the BLT team wanted to practice deploying and recovering a mooring system we are borrowing from our colleague Hans van Haren from NIOZ in the Netherlands. The NIOZ mooring sports a large number of in-house-built high-precision temperature sensors with their clocks synched via an inductive pulse. Their measurements provide information on ocean stratification at high frequencies and high vertical resolution and can be used to study turbulence. Second, we wanted to test a new design for a MAVS mooring. MAVS are acoustic travel time current meters that, paired with high precision thermistors, can be used to directly measure buoyancy fluxes. The test deployment of the MAVS will tell us whether the mooring is designed stable enough to allow for the high precision measurements needed to directly observe buoyancy fluxes. Eventually, both of these mooring types will be deployed during the main experimental phase of BLT in the Rockall Trough in summer 2020.

Today, we successfully recovered both moorings and brought all instruments safely back on board. The weather conditions offshore were perfect for smooth mooring recoveries from the R/V Sproul, one of the smaller ships of the research fleet based in San Diego. Data analysis in the upcoming days will tell us how the moorings performed and whether adjustments are needed before the moorings will be deployed in the Rockall Trough. An exciting byproduct of the test deployment will be information on near bottom flow conditions, stratification, turbulence and buoyancy fluxes in the San Diego Trough, a region so close to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and yet not very well explored..

Spencer and Jeremiah getting the CTD ready.

Spencer pinging on one of the moorings.

Bethan on the TSE winch.

Bethan and Brian winding the thermistor chain onto the TSE winch.

The WHOI team inspecting the recovered MAVS instruments.

Jay preparing dinner.

Highlighting MOD research on board R/V Sally Ride in Palau

Visitors on the ship in Palau together with MOD scientists Jesse Cusack and Gunnar Voet (Photo: Arnaud Le Boyer).

After a successful mooring recovery cruise in the tropical western North Pacific, a number of MOD scientists used the port stop in Palau to present their research to a number of local visitors. Students from the Palau Community College and the Mindszenty High School visited the ship, as well as David Idip and his team from PALARIS (GIS division of the Palau Government) and the US Ambassador to Palau, Amy Hyatt. The visitors also toured the ship from the bridge down to the engine rooms. We are grateful for Lori Colin from the Coral Reef Research Foundation in Palau for linking us up with all visiting groups.

Postdoc opportunity!

We are currently looking for a postdoc to work with us on the Samoan Passage project. Research tasks include analysis of a dense 3D dataset of moorings and tows resolving hydraulically controlled flows, breaking internal waves, turbulent mixing and other processes in the Samoan Passage, a constriction in the abyssal Pacific Ocean. In addition, we have results from a very high resolution numerical model of the region at hand to help with the analysis.

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