OOI In The News
Axial Seamount Helping Scientists Forecast Eruptions
On March 20, 2023, Oregon Public Radio reported about scientists work at Axial Seamounts, a seamount and submarine volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, about 480 kilometers off the coast of Oregon. The story details how bottom pressure recorders connected to OOI’s Regional Cabled Array are helping reveal the inner workings of the Axial Seamount and helping scientists forecast when it might erupt next. Featured are Oregon State University Professor Bill Chadwick, University of North Carolina Professor Scott Nooner, Oregon State University Assistant Professor Jeff Beeson, and College of Charleston Assistant Professor Haley Cabannis.
Access the article here.
Read MoreCoastal Review Reports on Pioneer’s Relocation
The Coastal Pioneer Array will have a new home in the Southern Mid-Atlantic Bight in the spring of 2024. Just like any move, there are lots of preparations necessary. In this case, test deployments are now taking place to ensure the Array can be in tune with its new environment.
Reporter Jennifer Allen provides insight into the ongoing preparations for the move and plans forward in an article in Coastal Review.
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Accessible Ocean Reported in LA Times
On February 3, 2023, the Los Angeles Times reported on the work of Woods Hole Oceanographic Researcher Amy Bower and her colleagues on the Accessible Oceans Project. The team uses OOI and other auditory data to explore ways sound can be used to help visualize ocean science for the visually impaired. It’s cutting-edge, fascinating, and inclusive work.
Read the LA Times report on this important initiative.
Read MoreOOI Hydrophone Data Helping ID Whale Calls
Elizabeth Ferguson of Ocean Science Analytics used OOI hydrophone data with DeepSqueak – a computer program designed to sort mice squeaks that is also finding whales in the deep.
She was interviewed about her work by Joe Palca on Morning Edition of NPR o n May 31, 2002. Listen to the report here.
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Striped Bass Link OOI Pioneer Array Locations
A recent article in the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette tells a fascinating tale of how fish like striped bass respond to changes in ocean conditions. The striped bass story also provides links between the current OOI Pioneer Array location on the New England Shelf (NES) and the new location in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB).
The Northwest Atlantic has been warming due to both atmospheric and oceanographic influences (e.g., Chen et al., 2014; Gawarkiewicz et al., 2019) and the impacts can bee seen in the distribution of marine species like stripers. The stripers are typically found on the New England Shelf in the spring, with bass fishing tournaments a long-held tradition for islands like Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and Cuttyhunk. But conditions are changing, and as the waters warm, the stripers appear to be moving further north. Data from the NES Pioneer Array are helping researchers and fishers understand the changes.
[media-caption path="/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Striped-Bass-migration-map.jpg" link="#"]Striped bass spring migration route. Credit: Martha’s Vineyard Gazette and Dana Gaines Martha’s Vineyard Magazine.[/media-caption]
Stripers spawn in brackish water and spend their first few years in estuarine waters like those of the Chesapeake Bay. These waters are changing too, with earlier springs modifying spawning behavior. Understanding how environmental conditions impact the life cycle of stripers from estuary to open ocean requires knowledge of the atmosphere, continental shelf waters, and the Gulf Stream. Finally, it is necessary to investigate interactions that exchange properties between estuaries, shelf and slope sea – which will be the focus of the MAB Pioneer Array currently being planned for implementation in 2024.
References
Chen, K., G. G. Gawarkiewicz, S. J. Lentz, and J. M. Bane (2014), Diagnosing the warming of the Northeastern U.S. Coastal Ocean in 2012: A linkage between the atmospheric jet stream variability and ocean response, J. Geophys. Res. Oceans, 119, doi:10.1002/2013JC009393.
Gawarkiewicz G, Chen K, Forsyth J, Bahr F, Mercer AM, Ellertson A, Fratantoni P, Seim H, Haines S and Han L (2019), Characteristics of an Advective Marine Heatwave in the Middle Atlantic Bight in Early 2017. Front. Mar. Sci. 6:712. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2019.00712.
Schneider, P. (2022), Climate Change Clue: Follow the Stripers. Vineyard Gazette, 12 May 2022.
Read MoreOOI’s Tools Could Be Leveraged to Support Blue Economy
In an opinion piece published on March 2, 2022 in The Hill, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions’s President and Director Peter de Menocal and Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Director and Vice Chancellor for Marine Sciences and Dean of the School of Marine Sciences at the University of California San Diego Margaret Leinen laud OOI and Argo’s contributions to learning about the ocean:
The full text of the opinion piece can be accessed here:
IPCC’s words matter — and so does the ocean
Fishers and OOI Scientists Working Together to Advance Science
An article in the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance newsletter highlighted the work between its members and scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), using OOI Pioneer Array data. The collaboration resulted in discovery of …“ all these things happening on the New England Shelf that we didn’t anticipate,” said Al Plueddemann, a senior scientist in physical oceanography at WHOI.
An important change in recent years is an increase in the meandering or “wiggliness” of the Gulf Stream. In addition the Gulf Stream has been generating more “Warm Core Rings,” large clockwise eddies.
Read more about how the collaboration is advancing science here.
OOI’s Contributions to Understanding the Changing Ocean Cited in Boston Globe
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Research Scientist Glen Gawarkiewicz cites how he uses OOI data to figure out what is happening in the changing ocean in an article on that appeared on the front page of the Boston Globe on December 28, 2021.
In a record-breaking year of weather, signs of a changed world.
[caption id="attachment_22801" align="alignnone" width="1610"] A resident walked through floodwaters left by Hurricane Ida in La Place Louisiana on August 30, 2921. Credit: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via the Boston Globe.[/caption]
Read More Ocean Data Lab Nuggets Providing Foundation for Accessible Oceans
Oregon Sea Grant Spotlights Partner OOI
In its August 2021 newsletter, Oregon Sea Grant highlights the work of OOI’s Endurance Array Team at Oregon State University. Sea Grant Scholar Charlotte Klein interviewed the Endurance Array Principal Investigator Ed Dever, who describes some of challenges in keeping arrays operational in a challenging offshore environment.
The article can be found here, on page four.
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