Posts Tagged ‘Coastal Pioneer Array MAB’
Opportunity to Add New Sensors/Equipment to Pioneer MAB Array
The U.S National Science Foundation (NSF) Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) is excited to report that the relocation of the Pioneer Array to the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) is now complete and the OOI facility is again considering requests by Principal Investigators to add new sensors and/or equipment to the Pioneer MAB Array. The process for requesting additions to the Array is described here.
The MAB deployment is the culmination of a three-year, multi-tiered process to relocate the Pioneer Array from its former location off the New England Shelf to the MAB. The NSF and the OOI Facilities Board (OOIFB) hosted a series of workshops in 2021 to elicit community input on where a relocated Pioneer Array might best meet science and educational needs. Based on input from these community workshops, the NSF gave its approval to the MAB site and the process was launched. Data from most instruments is available in real-time from the OOI Data Explorer. All non-telemetered data will be available after instruments are recovered on Array maintenance cruises that occur at nominal six-month intervals (April, October).
“Completing installation of the Pioneer Array in the MAB was the culmination of a significant effort by the OOI Team,” said Al Plueddemann, who served as the Chief Scientist for the first deployment of the array in the MAB and is Principal Investigator for OOI’s Coastal and Global Scale Nodes. “The time is right for researchers to propose additional sensors or equipment be added to the array so its full data collection potential can be realized.”
Notes:
- The installation of some sensors, especially acoustic sensors, may be subject to compliance with NSF’s Memorandum of Understanding with the US Navy.
- While the requests must be made for any additions to the Array, OOI would appreciate notification on plans to deploy stand-alone instrumentation within the OOI footprint.
Pioneer MAB Layout[/caption]
Read More Hot Wash: Pioneer-Adjacent PIES Deployments
RAPID: A Cost-Effective Approach for Characterizing Variability at High Temporal Resolution for Long Duration on the Continental Slope of the Southern Mid-Atlantic Bight
Two popeye data shuttle-enabled current and pressure sensor equipped inverted echo sounders (PDS-PIESs, Figure 1) were successfully deployed on the continental slope east of the U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Pioneer Array in the southern Mid-Atlantic Bight in June 2024. Data collected during the 4-year deployments will be shared broadly when PDS pods ascend annually to the sea surface and return data batches via a satellite link.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IMG_8421-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Figure 1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (MIT/WHOI) Joint Program students, Ysabel Wang (right, Physical Oceanography) and Will Harris (left, Applied Ocean Science and Engineering) and WHOI technician Brian Hogue (background) preparing a PDS-PIES for deployment. The instrument will measure round trip vertical acoustic travel time with bursts of 16 pings every 10 minutes and near-bottom pressure and current measurements every 30 minutes. The PDSs (orange) are scheduled to rise to the sea surface to return data batches remotely on September 1 in 2024 and yearly thereafter until 2027 with recovery of the PIES (white) planned for 2028.[/media-caption]The scientific motivation is to (1) capture mesoscale variability offshore of the Pioneer Array, (2) capture western excursions of the Gulf Stream North Wall that may influence ocean-shelf exchange, and (3) observe the upper portion of the equatorward-flowing Deep Western Boundary Current where it squeezes under the poleward flowing Gulf Stream. The PDS-PIESs were deployed on the 1000 m isobath 40-km apart to extend the Pioneer Array mooring footprint offshore and to allow comparison with a glider which is running a line (nominally) along the 1000 m isobath (Figure 2).
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Screenshot-2024-06-11-at-2.08.19-PM.png" link="#"]Figure 2. Map of PDS-PIESs (red dots, C1: 36° 3.125′ N; 74° 42.365′ W and C2: 35° 42.005′ N; 74° 46.209′ W), Pioneer moorings (yellow dots), and nominal offshore Pioneer glider line (blue). Red curve is time-averaged position of the Gulf Stream core and dotted lines are Jason altimeter tracks. Heavy contours are the 200 and 1000 m isobaths.[/media-caption]Cruise RR2407 was supported through the Office of Naval Research through the National Ocean Partnership Program Global Internal Wave (NGIW) study and provided at sea experiences for four MIT/WHOI Joint Program students and four undergraduates from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as part of their Blue Economy Program with WHOI. Many thanks to the National Science Foundation Division of Ocean Sciences for funding the PDS-PIES deployments and to engineer Erran Sousa from the University of Rhode Island who provided emergency shoreside support (on a Saturday!) to walk us through the PDS setups.
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Pioneer MAB Providing Turbidity from OOI Core Fluorometers
OOI is now providing telemetered turbidity measurements from the Coastal Pioneer Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) Array using Sea-Bird Scientific ECO triplet-w optical sensors. A test deployment showed that these instruments measured turbidity consistent with co-located turbidity meters that were recommended at the scientific community workshops. The results of the test deployment confirmed that OOI could satisfy the request for turbidity data with re-purposed instruments already in the suite of OOI core sensors. OOI has used ECO triplet-w optical sensors to measure chlorophyll a, CDOM fluorescence, and optical backscatter. This April, ECO triplet sensors were deployed with a secondary calibration from the vendor to convert backscatter channel (700 nm wavelength) measurements to turbidity in Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTUs).
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-30-at-4.33.23-PM.png" link="#"]Figure 1: Comparison of turbidity recorded during Coastal Pioneer MAB Array At-Sea Test 3 from a Seapoint turbidity meter and a Sea Bird ECO triplet optical sensor. Data shown was recorded in March 2023 at a depth of 35 m.[/media-caption]To conduct the test deployment, turbidity measurements were recorded every 15 or 30 minutes from 1-minute bursts of sampling at 1 sample per second (1 Hz) by both the ECO-triplet and co-located community-recommended turbidity meters. Turbidity in NTUs from the ECO triplet was calculated by applying a vendor-supplied scaling factor to the raw voltage counts minus the dark counts. The requested turbidity meters reported their measurements as a mean of the sample burst measurements, so the mean of each ECO triplet sample burst was computed for comparison. The burst means from ECO triplets were compared with the other turbidity meter measurements at the same location and depths. A time series comparison from 35 m depth during March 2023 showed a mean difference of 0.2 NTU between the two instruments. The standard deviation of the difference at 35 m depth was 1.2 NTU (Fig. 1). The March 2023 comparison at 7 m depth showed a mean difference of 0.1 NTU. The standard deviation of the difference at 7 m depth was 0.06 NTU. Turbidity measurements recorded before and after a CTD cast at the start of the test deployment were also within 0.15 NTUs of the mean turbidity measurements in the surface mixed layer and bottom layer from a rosette-mounted Wet Labs FLNTURTD. The full report on the test deployment, At-Sea Test 3, is available upon request. Based on the results of the test deployment, the OOI Program determined that the ECO triplet-w optical sensors with a secondary calibration could deliver good quality turbidity data.
ECO triplet optical sensors deployed as part of the Coastal Pioneer MAB Array now allow OOI to serve turbidity data from all 3 surface moorings at 7 m depth and 1 m above the seafloor. The use of existing OOI core sensors simplified integration into the instrument platforms, since additional ECO triplets only had to be added to seafloor nodes, and it streamlined the process of serving data, since existing sensor processing code could be reworked to provide turbidity data. Turbidity data delivered by OOI include all samples recorded during a sample burst so that data users can apply their preferred aggregation method. Since April, the ECO triplets on the near-surface platforms (Fig. 2, right) have been sampling at 1 Hz for bursts of 3 minutes four times an hour, and on the seafloor nodes (Fig. 2, left) the sensor samples at 1 Hz for 17 minutes once an hour. Data users can view telemetered turbidity data here: Coastal Pioneer MAB Array turbidity on Data Explorer.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-30-at-4.32.51-PM.png" link="#"]Figure 2: Sea Bird ECO triplet optical sensors that are measuring turbidity are mounted on the Seafloor Multi-Function Node (left) and on the Near-Surface Instrument Frame (right, yellow box) of the Coastal Pioneer MAB Surface Moorings: Northern, Southern, and Central. The copper-covered “Y” is a wiper blade that prevents growth and marine debris from accumulating over the oval sensor windows. Credit: Sawyer Newman © WHOI. [/media-caption]
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Pioneer Array Operational at MAB
A move is declared
Months of toil undertaken
This day it is done
Coastal and Global Scale Nodes (CGSN) Principal Investigator Al Plueddemann penned the haiku above in recognition of the successful installation of the Pioneer array at its new location in the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB) on April 17, 2024. This momentous occasion occurred on Haiku Wednesday, which prompted the poetic marking of a three-year effort to have the array deployed and telemetering data from the MAB.
The relocation of the Pioneer Array from its former location off the New England Shelf (NES) to its new location was a multi-tiered process. The National Science Foundation (NSF) joined forces with the Ocean Observatories Initiative Facility Board (OOFIB) to host a series of workshops in 2021 to elicit community input on where a relocated Pioneer Array might best meet science and educational needs. Based on input from these community workshops, the NSF gave its approval to the MAB site and the process was launched.
“Completing installation of the Pioneer Array in the MAB was the culmination of three years of preparation, which began with planning workshops in 2021, the recovery of the NES array in 2022, and engineering, procurement, and testing in 2023,” said Plueddemann, who also served as the Chief Scientist aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong for the first deployment of the array in the MAB. “It took an incredible effort from the whole CGSN Team to address all the considerations in moving the array to its new location. It is gratifying to see the successful deployment, with new, multidisciplinary data now available from this important oceanic region.”
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/New-shallw.jpg" link="#"]Two newly designed shallow water moorings were deployed at the Pioneer MAB site. These specially designed moorings allow a wave-powered profiler to span the upper 80% of the water column in water depths as shallow as 25-30 m. Credit: Sawyer Newman © WHOI.[/media-caption]The primary objectives for the April cruise included installation of three surface moorings, five profiler moorings, and two newly designed shallow water moorings. The moorings create the backbone of MAB Array, a frontal-scale, T-shaped array located off the coast of Nags Head, North Carolina, starting ~25 km offshore and extending ~50 km east/west and ~50 km north/south across the continental shelf. The ten moorings occupy seven sites; three sites contain both a surface mooring and a profiler mooring. In order to provide synoptic, multi-scale observations of the outer shelf, shelf break, and continental slope, the moored array is supplemented by four gliders and two AUVs. The gliders operate for 45-90 days at a time, provide transects along and across the shelf, and monitor the mesoscale field of the slope sea. The AUVs are deployed and recovered from the ship over a ~24 hr period and provide synoptic across- and along-front “snap shots” of the frontal region.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/NESLETER.png" link="#"]Collaboration between OOI and the Northeast U.S. Shelf (NES) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project began in 2017 and continued during this deployment expedition.Taylor Crockford was onboard to deploy an Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB) that continuously sampled seawater while the Armstrong was underway. Shown here are some of the creatures living in the seawater along the route. Credit: Taylor Crockford © WHOI.[/media-caption]Once the deployment was in place, the team turned its attention to additional expedition objectives, including a bathymetry/sub-bottom survey of a potential alternate Western mooring site, and cross-shelf and along-shelf CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth) transects. Once those were completed, the team headed home aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong to its home port in Woods Hole, MA where they were heartily greeted for a job well done.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sunrise-17-April-Ryder-2-scaled.jpg" link="#"]The sunrise was captured on 17 April over the Northern Offshore Surface buoy, highlighting the completion of the installation of the Pioneer Array in its new location in the Mid-Atlantic Bight. Credit: Jim Ryder © WHOI.[/media-caption]A review of the day-to-day operations to install the Pioneer Array in the Mid-Atlantic Bight m can be found here.
Read MoreAnd It’s a Wrap!
The Coastal Pioneer Array MAB team completed all the objectives of Leg 1 by the end of the day April 8th and started the transit home, back to the dock at Woods Hole. Taking advantage of a day in the wet lab, Glider Lead Diana Wickman took the opportunity to interview some folks about their experiences aboard the Armstrong over the last nine days. Hear what they have to say about the best parts of the journey.
Read MoreHoses Galore Hold Moorings Together
A flexible connection between the buoy and the anchor of the Coastal Surface Moorings of the Pioneer MAB Array is created by multiple hoses with the capacity to stretch while maintaining an electrical connection (Fig 1). The stretch is necessary to account for wind, waves and currents that push and pull the buoy relative to the anchor. The hoses connect mooring components and contain coiled conductors that allow data transfer and carry power generated by wind turbines and solar panels on the buoy.
The Northern Coastal Surface Mooring deployed for the first time in the MAB on April 4, 2024, illustrates the vital role these connection points play in keeping the mooring in place and operating. The mooring was deployed in 100 meters of water. The surface buoy is connected to the near surface instrument frame with a five-meter-long electromechanical chain (EM) chain. The EM Chain is flexible enough to bend to allow deployment (Fig. 2) but does not stretch. This provides support and stability at the top of the mooring. The EM chain also contains conductors to allow transmission of power created by solar, wind, and batteries on the surface mooring to the instruments below.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/EMChain.jpg" link="#"]Fig 2. The EM Chain connects the bottom of the surface buoy to the Near Surface Instrument Frame (NSIF) to left. Credit: DT Crist © WHOI.[/media-caption]Power moves through the EM chain to the instruments attached to the Near Surface Instrument Frame (NSIF), and then off to three stretch hoses each 30.48 meters long! The stretch hoses do what their name implies, stretch as needed in response to environmental conditions, yet they are strong enough to keep the mooring in place. The first section of stretch hose is connected to a Hose Interface Buoyancy (HIB) module, an orange flotation device that helps keep the stretch hoses floating and upright. The second section of stretch hose connects to a second HIB. Electrical connectivity is maintained by wired connections from the end of a stretch hose, through the hollow center of the HIB, and then to the next hose.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/HIBS.jpg" link="#"]Two Hose Interface Buoyancy (HIBs) sections are connected to each other with electromechanical stretch houses that provide flexibility and strength to the mooring and transmit power down the line. Credit: DT Crist © WHOI.[/media-caption]The third stretch hose section is connected to the Multi-Function Node (MFN), which houses instruments that need power. The MFN also contains the anchor.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/MFN.png" link="#"]The Multi-Function Node and Anchor Assembly being deployed off the back deck of the R/V Neil Armstrong. The stretch hose, which connects it to the rest of the mooring, is at the top and to the right. Credit: DT Crist © WHOI.[/media-caption]
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Complete-configuration.jpg" link="#"]More than 96 meters of hose keep the Coastal Pioneer Northern Array in place in its new location in the Mid-Atlantic Bight. Credit: DT Crist © WHOI.[/media-caption]
Perspective in Pounds
What’s amazing about the hoses that keep the Pioneer moorings on station and operational is the scale of the equipment that makes up the mooring. Take the top and the bottom of the mooring, for example. The Surface Buoy weighs some 8,500 pounds. The MFN and Anchor Assembly weigh 11,000 pounds. These weights and the scale of the equipment are not only challenging for moving around the deck and getting into the water, but thanks to the hoses these massive components are able to stay in the water, collect data, and report for up to six months. Hats off to hoses galore!
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REMUS 600 at Pioneer Array Reported
The use of REMUS 600 autonomous underwater vehicle at the new Pioneer Array location in the Mid-Atlantic Bight was reported in AZoRobotics.
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Historic, Continuing Collaboration
The U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative (NSF-OOI) and the Northeast U.S. Shelf (NES) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) project have been collaborating since 2017, when the original OOI Coastal Pioneer Array was deployed 75 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. Representatives from the NES-LTER project would join the Pioneer Deployment and Recovery expeditions in this region for their spring and fall seasonal cruise. Their work includes deploying an Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB) to sample continuously from the ship’s underway science seawater while OOI cruises were underway.
An IFCB is an in-situ automated submersible flow cytometer that generates images of particles taken from the aquatic environment. Designed and built by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the IFCB has since become commercially available through McLane Research Laboratories.
“IFCB enables us to study the phytoplankton and microzooplankton inhabitants of a given region. We can see what plankton are present over time and how the community structure adjusts to changes in the ecosystem,” explained Taylor Crockford, a WHOI researcher who regularly deploys IFCBs. “NES-LTER conducts four seasonal cross-shelf surveys per year studying the food web and physical properties of the surface waters and water column from near shore to the shelf-slope break, which includes the location of the original Pioneer Array. Now that the Pioneer Array is moving south, we are excited to have the opportunity to continue this collaboration and build upon our understanding of the planktonic communities in the region.”
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Cytobot-image.png" link="#"]A glimpse at the diverse plankton community IFCB is currently seeing today (April 2, 2024) during the transit south to the new MAB Pioneer location. Credit: Taylor Crockford © WHOI. [/media-caption]During the initial deployment of the Coastal Pioneer Array at the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB), this collaboration continues. Crockford is aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong and using an IFCB to collect data as part of the project’s broadscale study region (ongoing since 2013) while the ship transits to and from the new deployment site off the coast of Cape Hatteras, NC.
When the ship and team arrive at Pioneer’s new location, she will be lending her expertise to the deployment team for it is the first time a Plankton Imaging System (PLIMS) is being deployed on one of Pioneer’s Central Surface Moorings. This new deployment is an outcome of community input during an NSF and Ocean Observatories Initiative Facility Board sponsored workshop in 2021.
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First Deployment of the Pioneer Array in the MAB
At 0900 Eastern on Monday April 1, 2024, the R/V Neil Armstrong will back out of the dock at Woods Hole, MA to begin the transit to the new location of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Coastal Pioneer in the Mid-Atlantic Bight (MAB). This promises to be a momentous trip for it will be the first deployment of the Pioneer in the MAB, a location decided upon after a series of NSF-sponsored meetings with community users of OOI data. The expedition also will mark the 20th Pioneer deployment undertaken by the Coastal and Global Scale Nodes (CGSN) team at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
“The array is design to provide data to help scientists better understand the dynamics of the region, the role of biogeochemical cycling and transport, and the impact of extreme events like hurricanes and freshwater outflows,” said Albert Plueddemann, chief scientist for this first deployment and lead scientist of the CGSN group. “There’s already considerable community interest in obtaining data from the OOI infrastructure and leveraging the array installation for research and testing. Once the array is in place, we anticipate even more interest, and look forward to engaging with researchers in the region.”
The Pioneer MAB is a T-shaped array with moorings, located offshore of Nags Head, North Carolina, at depths of 30-300 meters and nominal spacing of15-25 kilometers. The array will consist of ten platforms at seven different sites – two platforms will be deployed as adjacent pairs at three sites. The platforms include three surface moorings, five profiler moorings, and two shallow-water moorings. The Pioneer MAB will also have mobile assets—four coastal gliders and two autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). These mobile assets will traverse the water column along different track lines to give a fuller, more robust picture of water column properties.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/MAB-Array-map-3-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Figure 1: Location of moorings of the Coastal Pioneer Array in its new location in the Mid-Atlantic Bight.[/media-caption]After a ~36-hour transit to the site, the team of 15 scientists and engineers will get to work to deploy the new array. Because of the large size of the moorings, the expedition will be conducted in two legs and be completed on April 22nd. In addition to the mooring and mobile asset deployments, the team will be conducting CTD (to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth) casts with water sampling at the deployment sites. In addition, they will be making ship vs meteorological comparisons at the surface mooring sites to ensure the rigor and accuracy of meteorological measurements. They also will be conducting some shipboard underway surveys, as well as a bathymetric survey to gain a complete picture of the new location.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_0550-2-scaled.jpg" link="#"]A lot of equipment is at the ready! Northern and Southern Coastal Surface Moorings, along with seabed multi-function nodes and near-surface instrument frames, as they were being assembled. The team integrates the science instrumentation with the mechanical/power/telemetry/data systems, then tests the system before loading on the vessel. Credit: Derek Buffitt © WHOI.[/media-caption]Continuing the tradition of the Coastal Pioneer Array off the New England Shelf, this first deployment expedition will be a collaborative one. A marine mammal observer from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be onboard to count marine mammals in the region. A representative from the Northeast U.S. Shelf Long-Term Ecological Research (NES-LTER) will be onboard to conduct sampling from CTD casts and flow cytometers, which can analyze the characteristics of cells found in water as the ship is underway. This will be a continuation of an ongoing collaboration for the past seven years. And a Department of Energy representative will also be onboard as tests are conducted to determine the viability of placing a wave energy conversion device on the array.
Along with being the first deployment in the Southern Mid-Atlantic Bight, the Pioneer MAB Array will also include new instrumentation on the three Surface Moorings. The new instrumentation includes plankton imaging sensors (the McLane IFCB), instruments that measure particle size distribution (the Sequoia LISST-200X), short-range velocity profile instruments for the upper water column (the Nortek Aquadopp Profiler-S1VP), turbidity sensors (the Sea-BIrd ECO), and new seafloor pressure sensors (the RBR Quartz3QPlus). These were among the measurements recommended during the National Science Foundation OOI Facility Board community workshops in 2021 to select a new location for the Pioneer Array.
[media-caption path="https://oceanobservatories.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/IMG_0554-2-scaled.jpg" link="#"]Sheri White and Nikki Arm prepare and bench test the new Imaging Flow CytoBot, also known as a Plankton Imaging System (PLIMS), that will be deployed on the Central Surface Mooring of the new Pioneer MAB array. The PLIMS generates images of the particles in the local aquatic environment. Credit: Derek Buffitt © WHOI.[/media-caption]
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National Lab Researchers Working on Wave Energy Converter for Pioneer
The Water Power Technologies Office of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announced that Sandia National Laboratories, in partnership with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is working to develop a wave energy converter (WEC) that can support the Coastal Pioneer Array, one of five arrays that make up the U.S. National Science Foundation Ocean Observatories Initiative.
The WEC will serve the Coastal Surfacing Mooring (CSM) system, which currently relies on solar, wind, and battery systems to power multiple sensors on the buoy itself and along the mooring line. These existing energy resources meet the system’s full power demand about 70% of the time. To satisfy the full power demand 100% of the time and prevent interruptions to data streams, Sandia has been investigating designs for WECs that could provide additional electrical power to the CSM.
Read more here.
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