Tag: WHOI

Researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are working to power homes and vehicles with fuel made from seaweed grown at large-scale offshore farms. The project will be funded by the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Ken Buesseler, a marine radiochemist at WHOI Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have for the first time detected the presence of small amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in a seawater sample from the shoreline of North America. The sample, which was collected on February 19 in Ucluelet, British Columbia, with the assistance of the Ucluelet Aquarium, contained trace amounts of cesium (Cs) -134 and -137, well below internationally established levels of concern to humans and marine life. The WHOI scientists, with the help of citizen volunteers, have collected samples at more than 60 sites along the U.S. and Canadian West Coast and Hawaii over the past 15 months for traces of radioactive isotopes from Fukushima.  Last November, the team reported their first sample containing detectable radioactivity from Fukushima 100 miles (150 km) off shore of Northern California. However, no radiation had yet been found along any of the beaches or shorelines where the public has been sampling since 2013. “Radioactivity can be dangerous, and we should be carefully monitoring the oceans after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,” said Ken Buesseler, ...

The Nereid Under Ice vehicle is launched from the Alfred Wegener Institute's ice-breaker Polarstern during an expedition last summer. (Image Credit: Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Scientists studying the harsh and rapidly changing Arctic environment now have a valuable new tool to advance their work—an innovative robot, designed and built at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) that is changing the way scientists can interact with and observe the polar environment. Over the past 30 years, the Arctic has warmed more than any other region on Earth. As sea ice continues to thin and melt, understanding the rapid changes going on in this sensitive part of the world and its ecosystems becomes even more crucial. The new vehicle, called Nereid Under Ice (NUI), is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight, micro-thin, fiber-optic tether, which relays in real time environmental data, including high definition imagery of what the vehicle "sees" as it explores, maps, and gathers data beneath undisturbed sea-ice away from the disruptive impact of an ice-breaking research ship.  This real-time view allows scientists to direct the vehicle's path and collect data of interest based on their visual feedback. The approximately $3 million vehicle, which was ...

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), as a part of the Stantec Team, has been selected by an interagency scientific review panel to lead a long-term scientific study of the Arctic marine ecosystem along the Beaufort Sea shelf from Barrow, Alaska, to the Mackenzie River delta in Canadian waters. The Marine Arctic Ecosystem Study (MARES) stems from increased attention in the Arctic region to climate change, energy development, and sustainability.  Information gained will aid government, industry, and communities in making decisions related to regulations, resource management, economic development and environmental protection issues.  WHOI scientists, as well as partners from more than 25 universities, environmental research organizations, private consulting firms, and independent scientists will be involved in the study. “We are delighted to be participating in this innovative and ambitious project,” says Carin Ashjian, a senior scientist and project lead at WHOI. “The Beaufort Sea is vulnerable to ongoing climate and environmental change. It’s exciting to be part of a collaborative team that includes academic and industry scientists to advance our understanding of the ecosystem processes in this region and contribute to the models that can help society plan for and mitigate changes.” Public/Private Partnership MARES is an integrated ecosystem research initiative ...

In 2013, the research team returned to Sermilik Fjord to find that a large passing iceberg had pushed down the SF1 mooring's top float to depths

Some of the increased melting at the surface of the ice sheet is due to a warmer atmosphere, but the ocean's role in driving ice loss largely remains a mystery

WHOI Scientists A team of researchers, including scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), discovered a massive bloom of phytoplankton beneath ice-covered Arctic waters. Until now, sea ice was thought to block sunlight and limit the growth of microscopic marine plants living under the ice.The amount of phytoplankton growing in this under-ice bloom was four times greater than the amount found in neighboring ice-free waters. The bloom extended laterally more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) underneath the ice pack, where ocean and ice physics combined to create a phenomenon that scientists had never seen before.(Photo by Sam Laney, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)The study, published June 8 in the journal Science, concluded that ice melting in summer forms pools of water that act like transient skylights and magnifying lenses. These pools focused sunlight through the ice and into waters above the continental shelf north of Alaska, where currents steer nutrient-rich deep waters up toward the surface. Phytoplankton under the ice were primed to take advantage of this narrow window of light and nutrients."Way more production is happening under the ice than we previously thought, in a manner that's very different than we expected," said WHOI biologist Sam Laney, who was part ...

WHOI video WHOI physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo examines the connection between ocean conditions and climate-driven changes to Greenland glaciers and describes some of the challenges to doing scientific research in the far north.

Understanding Arctic Oceans carbon cycle Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have conducted a new study to measure levels of carbon at various depths in the Arctic Ocean. The study, recently published in the journal Biogeosciences, provides data that will help researchers better understand the Arctic Ocean's carbon cycle-the pathway through which carbon enters and is used by the marine ecosystem. It will also offer an important point of reference for determining how those levels of carbon change over time, and how the ecosystem responds to rising global temperatures."Carbon is the currency of life. Where carbon is coming from, which organisms are using it, how they're giving off carbon themselves-these things say a lot about how an ocean ecosystem works," says David Griffith, the lead author on the study. "If warming temperatures perturb the Arctic Ocean, the way that carbon cycles through that system may change."Griffith's team sampled suspended particles of organic matter, as well as organic carbon and carbon dioxide (CO2) dissolved into the surrounding water. This is the first time that researchers have focused broadly on measuring multiple types of carbon at the same time and place in the Arctic Ocean-due to its remote location and ...

Tracking Debris from Damaged Oil Rigs Could Help Forecast Coastal Impacts in the Future Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, mysterious honeycomb material was found floating in the Gulf of Mexico and along coastal beaches. Using state-of-the-art chemical forensics and a bit of old-fashioned detective work, a research team led by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) confirmed that the flotsam were pieces of material used to maintain buoyancy of the pipe bringing up oil from the seafloor.The researchers also affirmed that tracking debris from damaged offshore oil rigs could help forecast coastal pollution impacts in future oil spills and guide emergency response efforts-much the way the Coast Guard has studied the speed and direction of various floating debris to guide search and rescue missions. The findings were published Jan. 19 in Environmental Research Letters.On May 5, 2010, 15 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, oceanographer William Graham and marine technicians from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were working from a boat about 32 miles south of Dauphin Island, Ala., when they saw a 6-mile-long, east-west line containing more than 50 pieces of white material interspersed with sargassum weed. The porous material was uniformly embedded with black spheres about ...