Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Ocean Interactions
Ocean and Atmosphere connecting Scientists, Teachers & Students

Thunder Ridge Middle School, Aurora, CO

Class profile: We are 7th grade students in a southeast Aurora, suburban school of the Cherry Creek district. Our school, like all Cherry Creek middle schools, has students from 6th to 8th grade. We feed into Eaglecrest High School. Until recently it was not unusual for us to find cows, coyotes and rabbits in our parking lot in the mornings, but there is a lot of growth in our area and new homes are eating up all of the open space very rapidly, unfortunately.

Teacher: Mr. Cronin

Q & A (week 11/17/03)

1. During our classes recently we have been learning about earthquakes,volcanoes, and the like. We were wondering if underwater volcanoes, earthquakes and black smokers have any affect on the instruments you use in your experiments and if so, how do you work around the changes they cause?

The volcanoes and smokers you mention are on the floor of the deep sea, so we don't experience any effect from them. Most of our measurements are made much much closer to the surface. Plus, we are in an area of the ocean where there is no volcanic activity.

2. Of all the things that have happened during this voyage, what do you consider to be the most fascinating? Has any of the data you have collected so far been particularly note worthy / unusual?

The sight of turtles always fascinates me, and this trip we saw 4 turtles in the span of about 2 hours. Turtles are amphibious, but sometimes you see them thousands of miles from land....just floating on top of the water without another turtle in sight. I've wondered how do they find a mate? We were steaming east along the 8N latitudinal line, when the Field Operations Officer, Mike Hoshlyk, saw a white fisherman's float in the water. This time, something seemed to be attached to it. I looked through the binoculars on the bridge, and there did seem to be an animal hung up in the line surrounding the float. The ship actually hit the float and the turtle, but Mike immediately called the Captain to ask permission to bring the ship about and to stop to rescue the turtle. The Captain granted permission, and a number of people got into a small boat to free the turtle from the fishing gear (see Brenda's write-up on her experience in the boat). Anyway, about 30 minutes after we got underway again, we saw another turtle....then another even BIGGER one. After another hour or so, we saw the last one of the day. Another thing that has struck me with respect to my own data set is the variability in air and sea temperature near the equatorial belt. There are a number of currents, upwelling zones, fronts (just like the fronts you see on the weather report on TV, but they are in the ocean), and this time, I actually saw alot of those signals in my data.

Q & A (week 11/10/03)

1. What system (playstation 1 or 2) are you using and what games are your favorites?

Hey! I thought you were going to ask science questions! There are only about 4 games with the system right now (PS-2). James Bond 007, ATV racing, some game with a spaceship that has to kill flying bug things and fly through a stargate, and Grand Theft Auto. These games are a bad influence, and teenagers should stay away from them. I played the Grand Theft Auto a couple of times, but I kept getting wasted by the Diablos or busted by the cops. Maybe scientists don't make good auto thieves.

2. How are the experiments going so far? Are you getting any good results yet?

This is a good question, and it allows me to explain a little more thoroughly how 'it' works for scientists.

The Earth System is a very complex interaction between air, sea, and land processes. As such, it isn't possible for a group of scientists to have a full grasp on the processes that they choose to investigate or how those processes affect the entire system.

Most often, scientists have a specific problem (for example, a weather model doesn't accurately predict California rain during El Nino years), come up with a reasonable hypothesis (for example, the cloud development from the Pacific isn't properly represented in the model), and design an experiment to try to resolve the problem (let's say, take a ship into the ocean in a non-El Nino year and again during an El Nino year and make lots of measurements of clouds, the atmosphere, and the oceanic temperatures). Then, that scientist needs to write a proposal and attempt to get funding to perform her/his study (this is the trickiest part).

Let's assume that our scientist got the needed funding, and takes the ship out into the ocean for the months that are planned in order to make the appropriate measurements. During the cruises, we get ALOT of data....I create a new data CD every day, and some of the other systems are even more data-intensive. This is alot of information which takes time to digest.

The instrumentation, as you have seen, is very complicated and sophisticated. Often, one isn't able to 'directly' measure a 'cloud'.....for meteorologists, we have to use radars which bounce electromagnetic waves off the cloud droplets. What we get back into our computers is electromagnetic 'rebounds'. It takes some fairly smart people to be able to convert those signals into something that can be interpreted scientifically. Often, the processing of that data and the subsequent interpretation of the data can take months or years.

The same is true of most of the other instruments used in the field. So you see, the gap between making measurements and acquiring knowledge which can be directly applied (in our example above, it was to make improvements to a weather forecasting model) sometimes takes years of data processing, analysis, interpretation, and finally, communication (writing a paper or a report).

One of our goals is to better understand the processes that influence North America's weather during and between El Nino years. This is the eighth time that the Flux System that we have deployed on the ship will have made measurements in this region (around the 95W / 110W TAO buoy lines). When this cruise is finished, we will take this data set home, have all of it processed and analyzed, and then we will add it to our growing climatological data set. Believe it or not, we still have alot of work to do in the coming YEARS to complete our description of what happens to the heat and gas fluxes within and outside of 'El Nino'.

Q & A (week 11/3/03)

1. How are the buoys kept in one place in the deep ocean? Do they have anchors that go all the way down to the bottom?

From Jeff: You are correct in suggesting that the buoys are anchored to the bottom. I will send a photo showing the anchors. The TAO engineers figured out a way to get heavy anchors cheaply. Just like the tires on your parent's car, railcar wheels need to be replaced after many miles of travel. The TAO engineers are able to obtain the 'throw-aways'. Here is a photoof an anchor, they can weigh up to 3-4 tons.

From Brenda: Sometimes the buoys break loose from their moorings and end up drifting away with the currents. On this trip, the buoy at 2N had broken loose and drifted to the northwest. The ship made the detour to the last known position of the buoy and picked it up at that location, later deploying another buoy back at 2N where it was supposed to be.

From Jeff: Any buoy that is deployed in the ocean soon develops an ecosystem below it. This is one of the most incredible things that I have witnessed and learned recently. I read a book a couple of years ago....I think it was entitled 'Adrift'....a true story where the author's boat sank and he was adrift in a liferaft. He survived for something like 65-70 days, in part, due to the fact that after awhile fish that he could spear began to congregate under his raft. Fishermen know that the fish thrive in this ecosystem, and they know where the TAO buoys are set up (it is posted on the web, for one thing). Some of the fishing boats are conscientious and they fish around the buoys, allowing the buoys to take data. A few unscrupulous fishermen, however, tow the buoys away from the area (they pull them and drag the anchor away too). They want to set up the buoy miles away so that the other fishermen don't know where it is, and they can have the fish under it all to themselves. Sometimes, the mooring line breaks when this happens, and the buoy sets adrift. The 'diversion' of our course last week was to try to locate one of the buoys which was drifting (probably as a result of being towed). We had a position for the buoy (which was originally at 2N), so we had to go to that location to pick it up, then re-deploy it in the correct location.

3.What sort of activities do you have for your spare time? It must get pretty tough dealing with others in such close quarters for so long.

From Brenda: It can get tough to deal with your colleagues after being in such close quarters for so long. Fortunately on this trip we all have our own rooms, so we have some place to go if we want to be left alone. As far as activities, I myself have been reading books, watching movies, journalling, playing ping pong (they have a table setup in the main lab area) and working out. You often see the various members of the crew playing playstation games, or different computer games. The bosn enjoys carving with a dremmell tool and can be found carving in his spare time. There are always things to do; it's just a matter of finding things that you like. :)

From Jeff: It isn't so tough to get along with each other. Everyone here is very friendly and cordial. Fortunately, on this trip, the ship isn't particularly crowded with scientists. Sometimes, there are 30-35 scientists (we have a total of 13), which makes a difference for privacy and general comfort. For activities, we have a few diversions....each evening, two movies are shown. Last night's movies were "The Ring" and "Changing Lanes". The ship recently purchased a PlayStation system, so alot of us are enjoying that. We have a ping- pong table, and scientist Dan Wolfe and Ship's Wiper Herb Watson manage to defeat anyone else who dares. Everyone has brought along books to read....I am currently reading a biography of William Wallace ("Braveheart"). Meals serve as a time to socialize, and the food is very good on this ship (thanks to the hardest workers on the ship....the cooks). Fishing is another past-time which many people enjoy (and everyone gets to eat the catch!). There is a workout room, provided to burn off some of Chief Steward Richard Whitehead's fine cooking.

Q & A (week 1: 10/20/03)

Thanks to Thunder Ridge Middle School and Mr. Cronin's classroom for your interesting questions!

1. How is the weather so far?

So far, the weather has been very calm and warm. As you can see from the plot on the website, we are heading south toward the Panama Canal. About 2 days ago, we passed between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba (but very far from each, so we could not see land). So, we are getting closer to the equator. The skies are mostly sunny, with the usual scattered cumulus clouds. Warm temperatures of about 30-32 degrees Celsius. Not much in the way of swells in the ocean, so the ride has been pretty smooth. I expect that the weather will remain much the same until we get through the canal in about 2.5 days.

2. Have you ever been in a hurricane on board the ship?

I've never been in a hurricane, and I never want to be. Ships watch the weather at sea very carefully so that they can avoid being anywhere close to a hurricane. A typical ship can only move at a maximum of 12 miles per hour, so the Captain and Navigator must watch the weather very closely for signs of bad weather. If a storm is brewing, then the ship's officers will decide whether or not to seek shelter. However, I have been in some exciting weather....we did an experiment on a ship in the winter of 1996-1997 where we purposely sat in the Atlantic Ocean in a place where we knew there would be alot of storms. There wasn't much danger of a hurricane developing (they are rare in the winter), but we did get knocked around by 17 storms during that month. Tammy and I have a video taken during that cruise that we were able to show to a few classrooms. The seas were about 25-30 feet (crest to trough), and that was the worst weather I've ever been in. I didn't throw up, but I was kind of queasy for most of the month.

3. I told the classes about the flying fish that Chris Fairall saw on a previous trip and they are wondering what sort of fish/whales you have seen so far and can you send us pictures?

We have not seen much wildlife (other than a few birds) in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Southern Caribbean Sea. We expect to see more fish and birds when we get into the Pacific Ocean, and Tammy will be posting photos that we take.