NOAA / OAR
/ ERL / PMEL
NOAA / OAR
/ ERL / PMEL
III. Ocean Environment Research
The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) is 1 of 11 Federal research laboratories within the Environmental Research Laboratories (ERL), of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory conducts interdisciplinary oceanographic and atmospheric research in support of NOAA's mission in the following areas: implement seasonal to interannual climate forecasts; predict and assess decadal to centennial environmental change; build sustainable U.S. Fisheries; advance short-term warnings and forecast services; environmental technology; and environmental information.
In 1980, 1985, and 1990, PMEL prepared 5-year plans to integrate a wide range of research areas into cohesive strategic plans for the laboratory and to guide research direction and allocation of resources. Beginning in March 1996, all members of PMEL were asked to contribute to the next 5-year plan through a series of mini-workshops held at the science division level. Summaries of these contributions are contained in this plan. In August 1996, the 1990 plan was reviewed and updated by PMEL management at a 2-day retreat. The 1996 retreat participants concluded that only minor adjustments were needed to the 1990 strategy.
NOAA now distributes funding through four long-term initiatives, the Climate and Global Change Program (CGCP), the Coastal Ocean Program (COP), the High Performance Computing and Communications Program (HPCC), and the Environmental Services Data and Information Management Program (ESDIM). These NOAA-wide programs provide a basis for planning PMEL's future and are an integral part of this 5-year plan. Research conducted at PMEL during the last decade has contributed significantly to the knowledge and understanding upon which these NOAA programs are founded. The following is a list of selected major PMEL research accomplishments:
Over the years, PMEL has earned a reputation for being able to routinely conduct complex and difficult oceanic and atmospheric experiments throughout the Pacific Ocean. The laboratory has become expert at end-to-end ocean observing systems including designing, engineering, modeling, implementing, disseminating information, and delivering products. This expertise is well-matched with NOAA's future vision to "Become the authoritative voice on environmental assessment and prediction in weather/climate, coastal and ocean resources, and water resources based on maintaining and improving observing and information delivery systems developed through research" (NOAA Retreat, March 1996). The laboratory's strength lies in the experience and knowledge of its professional and technical staff and their ability to obtain, process, analyze, and disseminate high-quality oceanographic and atmospheric measurements. This capability requires a modern, well-maintained inventory of instrumentation, computing hardware, and network connectivity. Although PMEL continues to stress its observational and analysis capabilities, the use of numerical models as planning and interpretive tools and the Internet for disseminating information will receive increasing emphasis. The ability to integrate, synthesize, and disseminate results from field and modeling experiments is considered the cornerstone of the laboratory's future.
A historical perspective of PMEL's major research themes is presented in Figure 1, which illustrates the gradual shifts in program emphasis that are expected to occur by 2001. Laboratory plans and major research themes for the next 5 years are presented for ocean climate, coastal ocean, and ocean environmental research. This is followed by a section that discusses critical infrastructure issues for personnel, capital equipment, information access, facilities, and vessel support. The final section discusses two new initiatives which may provide new activities for PMEL in the next 5 years.
2000
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The Ocean Climate Research Division (OCRD) is focused on in situ
observations of the physical, chemical, and biological properties of both the ocean and the marine atmosphere important for understanding climate variability. Many of the measurements can best be interpreted in terms of models, so modeling studies are another major OCRD activity. Climate studies are divided into two overlapping groups based on the time
scales of interest. One is seasonal to interannual ("short term climate variability") and the other is decadal to centennial.
The OCRD has evolved from the Deep Sea Physics group of the 1970's. A small group of scientists and engineers developed the instruments and techniques for making long duration moored observations in the equatorial Pacific. There were already recognized connections, detected by statistical analysis, between climate events widely separated in space (Bjerknes'
"teleconnections"). But there were no clues about the physical mechanisms involved because the ocean was inadequately observed. The PMEL development of moorings which could be deployed in the tropics and survive changed that situation, and provided the starting point for OCRD's present forté in short-term climate research. The observation of the physical processes
underlying the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is the purpose of the Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) array, the largest moored oceanographic array ever deployed for climate research. Data from this array, transmitted in real time via satellite, is an important input for short-term climate prediction, weather forecasting, and a number of other climate products. Analysis of TAO data and associated modeling studies has greatly advanced understanding of the physics of ENSO.
Interest in long-term climate variability led to the development of other research programs. The Carbon Dioxide, Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) Tracers, and hydrography programs took part in major ocean surveys carried out by the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). These programs have contributed significantly to our understanding of deep circulation and oceanic variability on decadal and longer time scales. The Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Dioxide Exchange Study (OACES) has led to a better understanding of the ocean's role in determining the global carbon dioxide distribution.
The Atmospheric Chemistry program, concentrating on Radiatively Important Trace Species (RITS) and aerosols, has contributed important new information on the oceanic source of trace gases to the atmosphere, the tropospheric distribution of these gases and aerosols, and the physical and biogeochemical processes which control their oceanic and atmospheric
concentrations. Ship-based transects have yielded oceanic scale distribution of trace gases and aerosol chemical, physical, and optical properties. These transects, combined with large-scale process studies in collaboration with the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC)
Project, have provided data to develop and test aerosol/climate model parameterizations.
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon is an interannual perturbation of the climate system characterized by weakening of the trade winds and warming of the surface layers in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific. ENSO occurs roughly every 3-7 years, and typically lasts 12-18 months. ENSO events have impacts in other tropical regions and high latitudes as well. The recognition of influence of ENSO on the ocean atmosphere system led to the initiation of the Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA) Program, a ten year study (1985-1994) of seasonal to interannual climate variability.
The need for an improved climate observing system became apparent when the scientific community was caught completely off guard by the 1982-83 ENSO event, the strongest of the century. The ATLAS mooring, measuring surface wind, air temperature, relative humidity, sea surface temperature, subsurface temperature to 500 meters depth, and two subsurface pressures,
was developed at PMEL starting in the early 1980's. The Tropical Atmosphere Ocean (TAO) array, consisting of 70 ATLAS moorings, was deployed in the tropical Pacific beginning in 1985. The array was completed in 1994. The array includes Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP's) at six equatorial moorings. The TAO array spans 8°N to 8°S, 95°W to 156°E, the breadth of the tropical Pacific. Much of the data is transmitted via satellite and is available in near real time.
Maintenance of the TAO array and the processing and dissemination of TAO data is the largest project in the OCRD. The recently dedicated NOAA vessel Ka'imimoana supports the TAO array full time. Additional ship support comes from other NOAA and non-NOAA sources, both domestic and foreign (including Japan, France, Taiwan, and Korea).
Scientific use of TAO data has been encouraged by development at PMEL of sophisticated data management and dissemination capabilities. The software system for handling TAO in situ data is called EPIC. Originally developed for TAO, the EPIC software is now used for many other in situ data sets. The TAO data are used to increase of understanding of the physics of the ENSO phenomenon. They are also used as inputs to a large variety of weather and climate analysis and prediction products, including ENSO prediction models. The present ability to make seasonal to interannual climate forecasts for North America depends on the existence of the TAO array.
The Thermal Modeling and Analysis (TMAP) project began in 1984 as a design study for the TAO array. The underlying philosophy is that modeling and observational work should develop together, that models can be used effectively to design observational arrays, that observations can be made well enough to validate models, and that large data sets should be handled easily using sophisticated graphics and desktop analysis tools. The graphics and analysis part of TMAP has resulted in the development of a set of tools called FERRET, designed specifically for handling gridded data sets. FERRET is a versatile software package and has become the standard analysis tool for a variety of large modeling efforts.
In TMAP, the climate system and the ocean in particular, is viewed as a forced system. The goal is to characterize the largest signals in the ocean, identify the forcing fields that might be responsible for them, use these fields to force model systems, and study the results of the models
to assess their relevance to the observed phenomena. Quantifying the uncertainty in both the observations and the models is a crucial element in TMAP.
During the past decade TMAP scientists have run a variety of model calculations and compared them with data from the TAO array to better understand the physics of ENSO. Recent efforts include developing a model which incorporates biological systems along with the physics.
Another project begun under TOGA is the Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE), designed to study the dynamics and thermodynamics of the warm pool region in the tropical western Pacific. The TAO array was enhanced in the COARE region during the experiment. OCRD scientists have completed a study of the heat balance in the COARE region, establishing the importance of horizontal advection of heat as well as radiative and latent fluxes for determining the sea surface temperature (SST) variability there.
The Pan-American Climate Studies (PACS) program began in 1995, following the end of TOGA. The program's goal is to improve the skill of seasonal to interannual climate prediction (especially precipitation) over the Americas. One specific scientific objective is to promote a better understanding and more realistic modeling of the seasonally varying climate of the Americas and adjacent ocean regions, with special attention to the role of SST. OCRD scientists have been working in PACS since early 1995, studying the ocean dynamics of the annual cycle of eastern Pacific SST.
A major goal in the NOAA strategic plan is to predict and assess decadal to centennial climate change. Much of OCRD's efforts are directed toward this goal. Broad topics include global ocean circulation, including the extra tropics and the deep ocean, and marine and atmospheric
chemistry.
Potential differences across submarine cables can be used to monitor transport variations of the ocean currents above the cables. OCRD has an active cable program in Florida, using cables from West Palm Beach to the Bahamas and Key West to Havana. The time series from West Palm Beach is 15 years long, allowing an integrated measure of the Florida Current transport
variability on decadal time scales. Modeling studies have been done to help interpret the cable data. There are a number of other cables that may be available for such measurements.
Human activity is rapidly changing the composition of the earth's atmosphere, causing the greenhouse warming effect from anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) and other trace gases. It is known from direct measurements that CO2 has been increasing in the atmosphere over the past 30 years. There are no consistent time series measurements of oceanic CO2 to parallel the atmospheric record. The world's oceans are believed to absorb about 2 billion tons of carbon per year, and are a major control on the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2. The NOAA Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Exchange program (OACES) was developed to determine how the ocean/atmosphere carbon system functions, i.e., to determine the sources, sinks, and transfer rates of carbon in the climate system. Since the sampling program began in 1990, 13 cruises have been conducted in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. Many of the sections were part of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE) and/or the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). In addition to pCO2 and DIC, the measurements typically include temperature and salinity, CFC's, alkalinity, pH, oxygen, nutrients, and dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen. Data from recent cruises are being compared with Geochemical Ocean Sections Study (GEOSECS) data to assess changes in oceanic CO2 concentrations over the last 20 years. Carbon data, CFC's, and hydrography are used together with numerical models to infer ocean circulation patterns.
The goals of the CO2 program are:
The PMEL Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) Tracer Program has been using dissolved CFCs as tracers of ocean circulation and mixing processes. Studies of the entry of CFCs and other transient tracers into the ocean provide a unique description of the time-integrated circulation of
the ocean on decadal time scales. The central goals of the CFC program are to document the entry of these compounds into the world ocean, by means of repeat long-line hydrographic sections in key locations at decadal intervals, and to use these observations to help test and evaluate ocean-atmosphere models. The development and testing of such models is critical for understanding the present state of the ocean-atmosphere system, quantifying the ocean's role in the uptake of climatically important trace gases such as carbon dioxide, and for improving predictions of climate change for the coming century. The repeat section program (which includes CFC, CTD, carbon dioxide, and other key measurements) begun at PMEL in the 1980's may serve as a prototype for a long-term system for monitoring and detecting change in the ocean on decadal time scales.
The PMEL CFC Tracer group has been a key player in organizing and executing several major oceanographic expeditions on NOAA ships during the past five years as part of WOCE. Working together with the CO2 and CTD groups, this has included upgrading the quality of the dissolved oxygen and nutrient analytical programs at PMEL, and working with the Engineering Division to design and use improved oceanographic sampling equipment. These efforts have placed PMEL among the premier institutions in the world with the capability of supporting large-scale ocean expeditions to study and monitor change in the ocean's interior. We hope to maintain and enhance our position as a leader in this area during the post-WOCE period. We plan to continue the program to monitor annual variability of dense water formation and ventilation processes in the Greenland-Iceland-Norwegian Seas, using CFCs and helium/tritium as tracers and to model the sensitivity of these processes to climate change. These studies have shown that the rate of formation of new Greenland Sea Deep Water (GSDW) during the 1980's and early 1990's was drastically lower than that in the 1970s. The near-cessation of the production of this cold, dense water mass by deep convective processes may be the result of decadal-scale changes in surface conditions in the central Greenland Sea.
The oceans play a significant role in global climate, serving as vast reservoirs of heat and fresh water. Changes in these reservoirs reflect, among other things, changes in ocean-atmosphere fluxes where water-masses were last exposed to the surface. This program investigates temporal
variability of these water-masses with regard to climate variability. Ocean currents also carry significant fractions of the earth's heat and fresh-water fluxes. This program seeks to improve estimates of these climatologically important ocean fluxes. This work is accomplished through
repeat occupations of zonal and meridional transoceanic hydrographic sections at decadal intervals. Field work and analysis are done in collaboration with the CO2, CFC Tracer, and Nutrient programs at PMEL, related programs at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), and the members of the academic community.
Since 1991, PMEL scientists have led four cruises in the Pacific Ocean in collaboration with the WOCE hydrographic program (meridional sections in the Northern hemisphere along 150°W in 1990 and 165°E in 1992, and in the southern hemisphere along 103°-110°W in 1994 and 170°W in 1996). With the exception of the most recent work, CTD/O2 (Conductivity-Temperature- Depth-Oxygen) data from all these cruises have been calibrated and reported. Plans for repeats of WOCE and other high-quality hydrographic sections under GOOS or CLIVAR programs to examine changes in temperature, salinity, CO2, CFCs, nutrients, and fluxes of all these properties are outlined in the white paper, "NOAA Ocean Carbon Dioxide and Tracer Program: An Integrated Approach to Decadal Ocean Climate Change Studies," by Taft et al., (1995). This document can be viewed on the Internet at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/whitepapers/ocdtp-summary.html.
Over the past four years several aspects of the mean and variable ocean circulation and physical properties have been studied. Cross-equatorial deep-ocean flow which ventilates the deep North Pacific Ocean has been studied using analytical models and hydrographic data. The dynamics of
North Atlantic Ocean overflows and outflows which feed the global thermohaline circulation have been studied with a range of data and laboratory experiments. The deep and bottom-water circulations of the Tropical Pacific Ocean have been studied using hydrographic data, analytical
models, and numerical models. Variability of deep and intermediate water circulation and thermohaline characteristics in the southwest Pacific Ocean has been studied using repeat hydrographic sections. Two ambitious circulation studies are planned for the next five years. First, the Pacific WOCE hydrographic sections will be synthesized with velocity measurements and historical hydrographic data to estimate the ocean circulation and climatically important fluxes in the region. Second, a large body of underused CTD data available in the tropical Pacific Ocean will be reduced and used for studies of the mean and variable circulation there.
The OCRD Atmospheric Chemistry program conducts field measurements to understand the distribution of RITS and aerosols in the marine atmosphere. The research program consists of both a trace gas and an aerosol component. The primary objectives of the trace gas program have been to improve quantitative estimates of the oceanic sources and sinks of important gas
phase species and to understand the physical and biogeochemical processes controlling their oceanic and atmospheric concentrations. Cruises conducted since 1987 have led to information on fluxes of carbon monoxide, methane, dimethylsulfide, and carbonyl sulfide from the ocean to the atmosphere, and have helped quantify the biogeochemical cycling of carbon monoxide,
dimethysulfide, carbonyl sulfide, ozone, and ammonia.
The aerosol program is designed to study the processes controlling the growth and transformation, the spatial and temporal variability, and the climatic effects of marine boundary layer aerosol particles. Atmospheric aerosol particles affect the earth's radiative balance both directly through the upward scatter of solar radiation and indirectly as cloud condensation nuclei. Natural aerosols derived from biogenic sulfur emissions have been augmented by anthropogenic aerosols from SO2 emissions and the burning of biomass and fossil fuels. The direct effect of anthropogenic sulfate aerosols is potentially estimated to be of comparable magnitude but of opposite sign to the forcing due to anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The actual global distribution of aerosols is not well known due to a lack of adequate observations, and the processes linking gaseons precursor emissions, atmospheric aerosol properties, and the
spectra of aerosol optical depth and cloud reflectivity are not well understood. Therefore, a major set of field studies, the Aerosol Characterization Experiments (ACE), have been planned. The first one, ACE-I, was performed south of Australia in late 1995, in a region of minimal
marine tropospheric pollution.
Major changes in the TAO projects in the next five years will include a transition to the "next generation" ATLAS mooring as the basic data gathering platform and the addition of new sensor capabilities to the moorings. The role of the TAO array in an "operational" ocean
observing system is under active discussion.
A new project using TAO array technology is being proposed jointly by the U.S., France, and Brazil. The purpose is to develop a moored array in the tropical Atlantic to study ocean-atmosphere interactions on seasonal, interannual, and larger time scales. This pilot moored research array in the tropical Atlantic is call PIRATA. The initial proposal is a three-year effort beginning in 1997. When completed it will consist of 14 mooring sites. The moorings for the pilot study will be built by PMEL. PMEL will train technical personnel from France and Brazil in the techniques of ATLAS mooring hardware, instrumentation and data processing.
TMAP goals include continuing to increase our understanding of the tropics, fostering the use of TAO data and evolution of the TAO array, encouraging interaction between modeling and observations in planning field programs, and fostering the development of an array of climate
stations in the Pacific outside the tropics to study decadal variability.
During the next three years, COARE analysis will continue with emphasis on determining the process responsible for the salinity and momentum variability in the western equatorial Pacific warm pool.
In the PACS program, the emphasis will be on further model development related to eastern tropical Pacific SST, use of TAO array data to evaluate mixed layer depth variability, understanding the role of high-frequency variability on the annual cycle, and understanding the interaction of SST on stratus cloud decks. This work will involve both oceanic and coupled
ocean-atmosphere general circulation models.
OCRD scientists hope to begin potential measurements on a cable between New Jersey and Bermuda. They will also assist scientists in Japan and Taiwan with similar measurement for monitoring ocean transports.
For the Carbon program, instruments have recently been developed to monitor surface water pCO2 on a continuous basis. The system is operating on Ka'imimoana as it services TAO moorings in the Pacific. Other instruments for deployment on the TAO moorings themselves are being developed. Further development of shipboard and moored instrumentation are major goals for the next five years. A number of long sections are also being planned. Details are available in the document, "NOAA Ocean Carbon Dioxide and Tracers Program - An Integrated Approach
to Decadal Ocean Climate Change Studies," by Taft et al. This document can be viewed on the Internet at http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/whitepapers/ocdtp-summary.html.
The PMEL CFC Tracer Group will continue to develop improved techniques for the analyses and use of dissolved CFCs as tracers of ocean circulation processes. We intend to continue field programs which use tracers to monitor the rates of deep water formation in high latitudes, and to
work with the CO2 and CTD groups along key hydrographic sections to better determine the ocean's ability to absorb heat and greenhouse gases. We plan to incorporate CFC observations into numerical model simulations of the ocean, to help test and evaluate the model's ability to realistically simulate ocean circulation and ventilation processes. We plan to take the lead in the initial syntheses of the CFC tracer data collected in the Pacific as part of WOCE.
The Large Scale Ocean Circulation program will plan to occupy repeat zonal sections along 24°N in the Atlantic Ocean and 43°S in the Pacific Ocean in cooperation with AOML and other scientists and examine changes in climatically significant properties and fluxes along these sections by comparison with historical data. They will participate in a synthesis of the WOCE-era Pacific Ocean Circulation data beginning with WOCE hydrographic data in the northwest Pacific Ocean and finishing with a pan-Pacific calculation incorporating velocity and historical data. They will synthesize historical tropical Pacific Ocean CTD data, first focusing
on mean property fields and circulation, then examining variability on one or more time-scales, most likely seasonal, interannual, or decadal time-scales.
The Atmosphere Chemistry group will continue to focus on the climate effect of aerosol particles. The understanding gained in ACE-I will be used to study progressively more complex environments. The next aerosol experiment, ACE-II, will be carried out in the Atlantic in 1997,
and will focus on anthropogenic aerosols from the European continent and desert dust from the African continent. Two more experiments are planned, INDOEX in the Indian Ocean and an ACE experiment in the northwest Pacific off Japan. These experiments and the analysis of the data from them will extend well into the next millennium.
The altimeter measurement from TOPEX-Poseidon mission and the NSCAT scatterometer just launched on the ADEOS satellite provide multiple opportunities for using TAO array and other in situ data and a suite of available dynamical models to demonstrate and assess the usefulness of the satellite data in understanding the dynamics of the ENSO region. The OCRD along with the Applied Physics Laboratory of University of Washington are undertaking a new project to demonstrate the usefulness of the NSCAT wind fields. Additional work on TOPEX-Poseidon data has also been proposed. These projects will form the basis of an expanded OCRD effort in the area of satellite oceanography during the next five years. Also planned in support of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) is a basin scale enhancement of moored rainfall and salinity measurements begun during COARE. These data will stimulate empirical and modeling studies of this hydrologic cycle over the tropical Pacific, and its importance for understanding short-term climate variability.
Interdisciplinary research focused on determining the impacts of the earth's largest volcanic system on the ocean and the impacts of tsunamis on U.S. coastlines
The discovery of plate tectonics, the concept that the Earth's crust is composed of a dynamic mosaic of plates created by volcanic processes along the global network of seafloor spreading centers, constituted a major intellectual revolution in earth sciences. This planetary perspective established volcanic activity which occurs along the global spreading center system as the dominant link between the earth's surface and its hot interior. Contemporary scientific investigations of spreading centers are resulting in discoveries that are radically altering our views about earth-ocean interactions. The rapidly emerging picture is that through processes of deep ocean volcanic and hydrothermal activity, the Earth's mantle has had a profound effect on the creation, composition, and physical dynamics of the Earth's ocean. Submarine volcanic eruptions add heat, gases, and chemical elements and compounds to the ocean while accompanying hydrothermalism mediates ocean chemistry by continuously recirculating the ocean through a hot, reactive subseafloor circulation system which exists along the entire 65,000-km-long spreading center system. Focused sources of hydrothermal and volcanic heat influence ocean circulation. In other words, the Earth, through its convective cooling processes,
is continuing to help sustain the relatively thin veneer of the ocean through dynamic processes of supply and recycling.
NOAA, as the earth-systems agency, has been investigating the chemical and thermal impacts of submarine volcanic and hydrothermal activity on the global ocean environment since 1984. During this time, NOAA ocean environment research scientists at PMEL have made many fundamental discoveries concerning how such activity affects ocean nutrient budgets and cycles, how volcanic and hydrothermal heat create deep ocean currents, how chemical and thermal tracers contained in hydrothermal plumes reveal surprising large-scale patterns of ocean circulation, and, very recently, how volcanic and hydrothermal activity gives rise to, and sustains, a newly discovered global subseafloor microbial biosphere. These discoveries are showing that not only are submarine volcanic and hydrothermal impacts globally significant, they are also beginning to reveal that these effects can occur over large regions within surprisingly short periods of time. While establishing international reputations for scientific excellence in ocean environmental research, NOAA scientists have also become recognized leaders in the development of state-of-the-art physical, chemical, and geological oceanographic sampling and monitoring technologies. The following illustrates an example of a recent major breakthrough in both oceanographic science and technology.
NOAA, as the only agency responsible for issuing tsunami warnings, has applied research to mitigate the damage to U.S. interests. Over the past 20 years this research has resided at PMEL and has led to major developments in tsunami detection and hazard identification in the form of deep ocean sensors and numerical models. More recently, NOAA has formulated a National Tsunami Mitigation Program (http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/~bernard/HAZARD.html)with PMEL as the lead NOAA organization.
Well over 80% of the Earth's volcanic activity takes place hidden in the deep ocean and the great majority of these eruptions occur along the global seafloor spreading center system. Early in the study of hydrothermal processes occurring along the Juan de Fuca Ridge (a segment of the global seafloor spreading center system located off the coast of northern California, Oregon, and Washington), PMEL scientists discovered an anomalous 20-km-diameter by 700-m thick lens of volcanically heated water that was being rapidly injected into the water column above a previously mapped area of active hydrothermal venting. Subsequently they were able to show that this very large hydrothermal burst was produced in association with an eruption which had created a new 16-km-long chain of underwater volcanoes. This was the first time that anything like this had been observed and because of the size of the water column chemical and temperature anomalies as well as their sudden appearance, it became clear that such episodic events could be very significant in terms of hydrothermal impacts on the ocean. Consequently, it became necessary to devise a means for monitoring the entire northeast Pacific spreading center
system in order to be able to detect and locate underwater volcanic activity.
After a lengthy negotiation with the U.S. Navy, PMEL scientists were granted permission to access the Navy's highly classified antisubmarine warfare hydrophone arrays. Subsequently, a sophisticated hardware/software system was designed and built to continuously receive and record data in real time from these hydrophones and to thereby "listen" for naturally occurring underwater sounds, including those made by submarine volcanic eruptions. During the three years this system has been operational, it has provided an unprecedented perspective of the dynamics of Pacific spreading centers and both submarine earthquake and volcanic activity throughout virtually the entire Pacific basin. This monitoring capability is unique; land-based seismic networks can only detect about 1% of this activity.
Within days of being able to monitor the Juan de Fuca Ridge, an eruption was detected and located off the central Oregon coast. For the first time, it was possible to study an example of the most frequent type of volcanic eruption on earth while it was active. Analogous to land volcanoes, the most profound effects of submarine eruptions occur in the early stages and, as hypothesized, the eruption did produce a number of very large episodic heat and chemical anomalies in the overlying water column. As a consequence of this event, PMEL scientists along with a large number of their academic and other agency scientific collaborators produced a series of interdisciplinary benchmark papers which have begun the process of quantifying how, and over what time scales, such events perturb the ocean.
In the intervening three years, PMEL's acoustic monitoring has revealed that eruptions along the Juan de Fuca Ridge are much more common than previously thought. This, in turn, has important implications for the magnitude of the chemical and thermal effects these eruptions produce. In addition, the hydrophone arrays are proving to be very effective at locating and studying whales. PMEL scientists therefore initiated a collaboration with NOAA National Marine Mammals Laboratory biologists to begin a pilot study to assess how such data can contribute to NOAA's mission to protect endangered species of Pacific whales.
After 10 years of developing a deep ocean instrument to detect tsunamis http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/ (PMEL Tsunami Research Page), PMEL has constructed a prototype system which can acoustically transmit data from the seafloor instrument to a surface buoy and from the surface buoy to the tsunami warning centers. This deep-water detection system can deliver tsunami data in near real time and represents a major breakthrough for tsunami forecasting.
One of NOAA's principal goals in ocean environmental research is to distinguish between
natural and anthropogenic changes in the chemical and thermal state of the global ocean and to determine how quickly large-scale volcanically- and hydrothermally-induced changes occur. Hydrothermal activity produces significant localized sources of heat in the ocean which, through buoyancy-driven mixing and entrainment, result in the redistribution of nutrient-rich bottom water hundreds of meters higher in the water column. Recently it has also been discovered that buoyant iron-rich hydrothermal particles are migrating upward through the water column. The effects of these rapid transfers of deep nutrients into mid-depth levels of the water column, including effects on phytoplankton and the uptake of dissolved CO2, are currently under investigation.
Similarly, the effects of varying input of large quantities of hydrothermally-produced iron on upper ocean productivity is beginning to be investigated. There are large-scale, shallow, hydrothermally active regions which occur throughout the western equatorial Pacific. PMEL scientists are planning the exploration and study of these regions in collaboration with a consortium of Japanese and German agencies and institutions.
NOAA's investment in basic ocean environmental research is now poised to pay off in another way that could not have been anticipated until very recently. This new application of PMEL's scientific and technological expertise may very well turn out to be even more important than the global ocean environmental impacts summarized above. Within the past several years, it has been discovered that there is a diverse community of microscopic organisms (primarily bacteria) which live below the seafloor in volcanically and hydrothermally active regions around seafloor spreading centers. These thermophyllic bacteria, which belong to a new kingdom, Archaea, are carried to the seafloor surface by hydrothermal venting. The extreme unusualness of their living environment together with their large species diversity and biomass make this discovery essentially equivalent to discovering life on another planet. All of these microorganisms exist by means of chemosynthesis and many thrive at temperatures conditions in excess of 100° C. The latter, known as hyperthermophylic bacteria, are being found to have biological attributes that make them of great usefulness in a very wide variety of biochemical, biotechnical, and pharmaceutical applications. Enzymes created by certain species of these bacteria have already been utilized as DNA polymerases, which are the basis for a several hundred million dollar per year biotechnical industry. Other enzymes produce H2, a potential future fuel source, from organic refuse. There is widespread and intense interest in finding other hyperthermophylic enzymes which have other practical applications.
For the past two years, PMEL oceanographers and geophysicists have been collaborating with a team of scientists who are doing pioneering work to identify and study hyperthermophylic bacteria and to discover how volcanic and hydrothermal activity affects their subseafloor biosphere. Submarine volcanic eruptions provide unique "windows" which make it possible to learn both about the bacteria's species diversity as well as their ecology. Through its hydrophone monitoring capability, NOAA, with its access to the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) and VENTS deployable hydrophone arrays, has the only effective capability in the world for detecting and locating such volcanic events.
The PMEL Tsunami Project will continue to maintain deep ocean bottom pressure recorders (BPRs) to provide tsunami records for research into the dynamics of tsunami generation, propagation, and coastal inundation. Research activities are expected to broaden over the next 5 years to include applications of the deep ocean BPR toward the development of a real-time tsunami detection system. This research will include the construction and implementation of a new buoy array.
Research will focus on using deep ocean tsunami measurements to forecast the impact on U.S. coastlines. PMEL will also participate in the NOAA efforts to mitigate tsunami hazards for the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.(Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Plan)
The principal products of VENTS research are peer-reviewed publications and new technologies (or new applications of existing technologies) designed and utilized for obtaining in-situ, long-term data time-series pertaining to the chemical and thermal impacts of submarine volcanic and hydrothermal activity and tsunamis. Performance of the program will be measured by the quantity and quality of both of these products. The principal research activities in the program will continue to focus on interrelated studies involving the geology and geophysics and the physical and chemical oceanography of deep ocean volcanic and hydrothermal activity and its water column effects. The program will continue to augment its in-house expertise with extensive research and technical collaborations with the following institutions and agencies:
Communication of research results will be primarily achieved through peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts published separately or in collections of related papers in nationally and internationally recognized journals. Initial research results and technical achievements will be reported through both regular and special national and international meetings and symposia. Transfer of data to interested parties will be accomplished through exchange of actual specimens and/or through digital and GIS-based data sets which will be available through the Internet. Other research results will be communicated through regular meetings with partners in formal research agreements, including the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Program in Natural Resources and the Science and Technology Agency of Japan.
The mission of the Coastal and Arctic Research Division is to be a leader in examining and elucidating fisheries oceanographic processes in Alaskan waters with emphasis on ecosystem variability and sustaining commercial fisheries.
The goal of Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI) is to develop scientific understanding that can be used to help manage stocks of commercially important fish and shellfish in Alaskan waters in support of NOAA's mission to build sustainable fisheries. PMEL collaborates in this effort with the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC), the University of Alaska (UA) and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The information needs of fisheries managers have broadened beyond the traditional requirement for knowledge of year-to-year variability in fish stocks to understanding decadal variability and its impact throughout the ecosystem.
FOCI/Shelikof is a mature research project begun in 1986 to understand recruitment variability of walleye pollock in the northern Gulf of Alaska. Recruitment is the number of fish spawned that will survive to enter the fishery two years later. In FY 1996, FOCI made its fifth annual prediction of Shelikof Strait recruitment. In conjunction with UA, FOCI has established a new five-year project in the Bering Sea that will begin in FY 1997, titled "Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC)." SEBSCC is a Coastal Ocean Program Regional Ecosystem Study administered by UA, AFSC, and PMEL. The goal of SEBSCC is to increase understanding of the southeastern Bering Sea pelagic ecosystem. Juvenile pollock will be considered as a key or nodal species. New information will be used to develop and test annual indices of pre-recruit (age-1) pollock abundance and the overall health and status of the ecosystem. These indices will support management of pollock stocks and help determine the food availability to other species.
FOCI's approach is to provide categorical recruitment forecasts (e.g., weak, average, strong) that are used to define scenarios considered by AFSC's stock projection models. The forecasts are developed from an evolving source of information and analytical models guided by FOCI's conceptual model of recruitment. Such information includes, for example, time series of adult stocks, index of larval abundance, rainfall, wind mixing, and advection.
An opportunity exists for FOCI during the next five years to examine the variability of heat storage and circulation of the northeast Pacific and its impact on the biological oceanography. The commercial species of primary importance is salmon. This opportunity could be a part of the evolving emphasis on the North Pacific by the PICES Climate Change and Carrying Capacity (CCCC) program, the AFSC Auke Bay Laboratory's Carrying Capacity for salmon (CC) program, and the U.S. GLOBEC Program. The challenge for FOCI in the next five years is to maintain its observational and data analyses infrastructure.
Having just published a synthesis of our first decade of work (Fisheries Oceanography, Vol. 5), Shelikof Strait FOCI is poised to maintain and improve forecasts. These studies will:
The first objective includes acquisition of environmental data and retrospective studies using model simulations. The intent of the second objective is to understand the relationship of survival to biophysical processes, e.g., what role does the timing and spatial nature of primary production play in success of first-feeding larvae and are such processes enhanced in eddies?
The third objective requires that FOCI examine an extremely challenging life-history stage, the young of the year. FOCI research has shown that a necessary condition for an average to strong recruitment is an adequate abundance of larvae. It has been noted, however, that relatively high abundances of larvae do not always result in high recruitment. While this objective is a natural extension of FOCI research, it is also directly responsive to management concerns. A central issue in setting allocations for 1997 is the strength of the 1994 year class. The FOCI prediction for this year class, based on a combination of physical environmental information through the late larval stage and the annual late larval survey, was for an average recruitment. From survey data collected in 1996, however, it appears that the 1994 year class will be strong. One solution to this dilemma is that survival during June through September 1994 was high. While the factors that potentially influence survival of age-0 animals are numerous and complex, it is clear that we should develop and test indices of survival during this life history stage.
The Bering Sea ecosystem is among the most productive of high-latitude seas and supports large populations of marine fish, birds, and mammals. This productivity is important to the U.S. economy; fish and shellfish from the region constitute 40% of the U.S. fisheries harvest. Pollock, salmon, halibut, and crab generate over 2 billion dollars each year in revenue and provide a major source of protein. Presently, most Bering Sea fisheries are not over-exploited, although there have been major changes in abundance over the last thirty years. We do not understand the stability of the present state of the Bering Sea ecosystem. The overwhelming dominance of walleye pollock in the Bering Sea suggests that this species currently plays a singularly important role in this ecosystem.
Quantifying the relative importance of natural variation and human exploitation in explaining changes in the upper trophic level ecosystem is a key management issue for the Bering Sea. Natural variations include lower trophic level shifts in the production of new organic matter and its distribution between the pelagic and benthic systems. Our conceptual model proposes that the juvenile (age-0 to age-1) pollock population represents a nodal element of the Bering Sea ecosystem. By nodal element, we imply that a large fraction of the ecosystem energy passes through this population. Juvenile pollock respond to and potentially impact primary and secondary production through grazing, and influence the availability of food for upper trophic level species, including adult pollock, seabirds, and marine mammals. Pollock provide an important measure of the condition of the present ecosystem, and may be an indicator of changes in the Bering Sea over the last three decades and in the future.
The SEBSCC program is designed to improve our understanding of the Bering Sea ecosystem. The results of this endeavor will directly assist fishery and resource managers, both by forecasting recruitment and providing information about protection of marine mammals.
SEBSCC is a Coastal Ocean Program Regional Ecosystem Study and will be carried out from 1997 to 2001. It focuses research on two elements of the ecosystem: 1) cross-shelf transport and fate of nutrients and 2) juvenile pollock as a nodal species. PMEL is represented on 5 of 15 successful proposals for SEBSCC:
These proposals build on four strengths of the FOCI program: 1) development and deployment of biophysical mooring platforms and sea-going surveys; 2) high-resolution numerical modeling of the biophysical environment; 3) understanding atmospheric variability as it forces ocean processes; and 4) development of a strongly interdisciplinary ecosystem program with a long-term focus on management products.
R. Ian Perry, guest editor for the Fisheries Oceanography special issue on FOCI in 1996, noted that FOCI remains among the longest continuing fisheries oceanographic programs today. He suggested that, in retrospect, the reason for FOCI's scientific success has been consistent institutional involvement over ten years, limited primarily to two NOAA institutes at the same location. This provided stability for the research and continuity of program management and administrative personnel, with a majority of scientists remaining with this program since its inception. A challenge for PMEL and AFSC in the remainder of the century is to maintain the core infrastructure of FOCI observations and data analyses, and to improve Shelikof forecasts through investigation of survival of age-0 fish, given a core funding base that has been decreasing since 1986. An increase in base support is necessary to maintain the continuity and focus required for FOCI's fisheries oceanography leadership.
PMEL's scientific productivity depends upon a stable infrastructure which includes first-rate scientific and technical personnel, state-of-the-art capital equipment, and easy access to data and information. Although careful stewardship of these resources is critical to the continuation of existing programs, new technological advances in computers, communications, and instrumentation require a more aggressive investment if we are to respond to the challenges presented by NOAA's cross-cutting programs.
Following a period of rapid growth in the 1970s (during which PMEL's staff grew from approximately 20 in 1973 to a high of 125 in 1979), the 1980s were characterized by relative stability and low personnel turnover. This resulted in a highly experienced scientific and technical staff that successfully completed many difficult and formative field experiments, establishing PMEL as an early leader in climate and coastal programs. By the end of 1996, 78 percent of our senior employees (GS-13 and above) had been with the laboratory for more than 10 years. This stability and leadership role is expected to continue through the next 5 years, as 41 percent of our senior staff become eligible for retirement. With the recent emphasis on downsizing of government, no growth is expected in personnel. During this period scientists will be replaced only as attrition allows. It is important that promising young scientists and technicians be recruited at every opportunity to keep the laboratory fresh and energized.
PMEL's capital equipment inventory involves oceanographic instrumentation, computing and networking hardware, and support facilities. This inventory has an FY 96 replacement value of approximately $13M and consists primarily of 120 current meters, 110 acoustic releases, 34 bottom pressure gauges, 70 ATLAS moorings, 19 chemical analysis systems, 10 vertical profiling systems, 11 server systems, over 200 desktop devices (workstations, microcomputers, X-terminals), 2 router systems, 2 Ethernet switches and miscellaneous support equipment, including a wind tunnel, a 38' work boat, environmental chambers, electronic test instrumentation, and machine shop tools. It is essential that this equipment be maintained and enhanced to meet growing and technically difficult program requirements.
In order to sustain this inventory over the next decade, approximately $1.3M per year will be required (using life cycle cost estimates) for maintenance and upgrades. Unfortunately, current laboratory base and project funds have not kept pace with this need and an unfunded infrastructure liability of $300-400K per year exists. Future proposals must include support for this unfunded liability (as either an infrastructure tax or explicit equipment purchases) or PMEL will be unable to meet proposed program commitments. As new program initiatives are developed, funds for expanding and upgrading the existing infrastructure must be explicitly included.
Management and support of instrumentation and computer/network hardware are generally provided by the Engineering Development Division, the Computing and Network Services Division (CNSD), and the Technical and Administrative Support Division. User groups provide the primary forum for open discussions concerning scheduling, maintenance, and upgrades. Periodic involvement of and feedback from user groups are considered essential to providing responsive laboratory services. For new and emerging technologies that are expected to drive the long-term health of the laboratory (e.g., Doppler current profilers, nutrient analyzers, and desktop systems), special laboratory-wide working groups will provide the focus for early development and implementation.
PMEL faces a significant challenge to keep up with fast-changing Internet and World Wide Web technologies while maintaining a stable computing environment. Increased access to and dependency on Web-shared data and information as well as applications to share video, 3-D graphics, and multimedia information will continue to require bandwidth increases in both backbone and desktop. Implicit in these requirements is the need for a robust physical infrastructure and continued high-bandwidth access to the Internet. Web browsers will continue to be an important tool to allow consistent access to information and applications across PMEL's heterogeneous desktop systems. PMEL users will need access and training to use emerging Web development and authoring tools. Distributed database technology will be required to share information stored at multiple Web sites. Network navigation tools, search engines, and information filters will help make information accessible and manageable. Meanwhile, as this new technology is introduced, high-performance networks, local servers, printers, and services must be kept stable and up to date. The laboratory must maintain a productive scientific computing environment while continuing to invest in network hardware and expertise, software tools, and training to take advantage of new Web technologies.
The data and information managed within PMEL have been steadily increasing in volume and complexity during the past 5 years and it is expected that this trend will continue over the next 5 years. PMEL can meet the challenge of providing timely, efficient, and centralized access to an increasingly large information flow by using its substantial software and technology base and making maximum use of emerging technologies such as the World Wide Web and powerful, low-cost, computer hardware and software.
The advent of more powerful computers and the emergence of World Wide Web technology has already had significant impact on PMEL data and information management. Within the laboratory, significant progress has been made in electronic distribution of information throughout PMEL (e.g., electronic mail, word processing, and laboratory, project, and division Web pages). For the first time, PMEL's in-situ and gridded data sets are available from every PMEL desktop with a Web browser. As new instrumentation is developed for sampling the ocean and atmosphere more intensely, and as this instrumentation is deployed in large-scale or even global observing systems, the data streams managed within the laboratory will explode in size. There will be a similar increase in the speed and complexity of project and administrative information. By utilizing existing investments in software, computer networks, and highly trained technical support staff, in combination with modern and emerging technology, PMEL will meet the data and information challenges of the next 5 years with a cost-effective solution for increasing productivity in a stable or even possibly resource-limited personnel and financial environment. PMEL's CNSD will continue to play a key role in this strategy. The importance PMEL places on this strategy has been underscored by the creation of a new position of Associate Director for Information Management to provide management support for this emerging field.
During the next few years, PMEL's space requirements at Sand Point will remain about the same to accommodate field projects associated with the Coastal Ocean Program and the Climate and Global Change Program. HPCC and ESDIM projects will need to maintain the current electronic laboratories, mooring staging areas, computing hardware, and general office space to support expanded requirements for instrument maintenance and preparation, data processing and analysis, and data dissemination.
The Administrator's proposal to transition the NOAA Corps to civilian service and to downsize or outsource elements of the NOAA fleet have the potential for major impact on PMEL vessel and aircraft support during the next 5 years. PMEL currently uses approximately 500 days at sea per year aboard NOAA Class I and Class II vessels. We anticipate that PMEL will require a similar level of ship support during the next 3 to 5 years, including use of the NOAA Ship Ka'imimoana to support the TAO Array and related equatorial observations, and the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown to support VENTS, FOCI, CO2, tracers, aerosol, and other large-scale observation programs. The NOAA Ship Miller Freeman will be used to support ongoing FOCI work in Alaskan and North Pacific waters. The FOCI science program requires 100 hours of WP-3D aircraft time every other year. Additionally, 16 ALVIN dives or 200 hours annually of ROV time will be needed for VENTS-related seafloor research support.
The laboratory-wide discussion process for long-term strategies led to the formulation of two new initiatives.
There is increasing evidence that coherence between physical and biological variables in the North Pacific appears to predominate at the decadal scale and not at the annual scale. Hierarchy theory states that there must be a spatial and temporal scale overlap for energy to be effectively transferred between system components. The temporal variations of the two modes of North Pacific weather patterns, the difference in shoaling of the mixed layer and zooplankton response between the late 1950s and 1980s, and the smaller mean size of salmonids in the 1990s all have strong decadal characteristics over a spatial scale of the North Pacific Gyre.
Variability of the ocean/atmosphere system in the central North Pacific is believed to be important both for continental US climate and for northwestern fisheries. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO (Zhang et al. 1996) has recently been characterized from ocean surface data, and has also been strongly linked to salmon catch in the Canadian and Alaskan fisheries (Hare et al., 1996). There is evidence that SST responds relatively quickly (i.e., on monthly timescales) to anomalous atmospheric forcing in the North Pacific (e.g., Wallace et al., 1990). But there is scant understanding of the mechanism(s) which integrate or rectify the ocean's response to yield the decadal time scales of the PDO.
PMEL has a unique opportunity and capability to begin to implement a biophysical observing system that will better document the structure and dynamics of the PDO and its relationship to fisheries. Current or soon-to-be technology includes measurements of precipitation, chlorophyll and ambient light. In addition to other observations, an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) provides important biological backscatter measurements which provide information on distribution, timing, and abundance of zooplankton communities. Mixed layer depth, however, is probably the most important parameter. The central and northern portion of the North Pacific gyre would be the most important locations for observations. For historical reasons, Ocean Station PAPA should be included.
By re-occupying the Ocean Weather Station (OWS) PAPA site (45° N, 150° W) with an upper ocean mooring, we can initiate the deployment of an optimal array of moorings which will document air-sea interaction and upper ocean variability in the central North Pacific. These observations are timely because it appears that the present climatic regime is different from the regime that prevailed while OWS PAPA was in place. The installation and maintenance of a mooring at OWS PAPA, and eventually at other sites in the North Pacific, would also provide opportunities to measure biological parameters of direct relevance to fisheries.
Because of improvements in technology, it is now, or will soon be, possible to make in situ measurements of precipitation as well as evaporation over the open ocean. These types of in situ observations are virtually non-existent, yet are recognized as being of great scientific interest (e.g. Global Energy and Water Experiment [GEWEX], TRMM, etc.). The array of moorings would also provide badly needed validation data sets for mid-latitude satellite estimates of SST, sea level height, surface winds, precipitation, and net surface radiation. Thus there would seem to be an opportunity to approach NESDIS and NASA for support after the proof of concept has been accomplished.
With an array of moorings, PMEL has the opportunity to contribute toward understanding decadal variability. We would be positioned to provide vital insight into interpretation of high resolution numerical modeling of the North Pacific and we would be able to collaborate with a major portion of the biological community who have developed the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES) Climate Change and Carrying Capacity Initiative, the NMFS Carrying Capacity Project, and the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (GLOBEC) programs.
In conjunction with evolving FOCI and OCRD research activities, the OWS PAPA and other North Pacific sites would be maintained indefinitely; additional mooring sites would be added to meet and complement
CLIVAR, GCOS and fisheries needs. We anticipate that there would be special interest in sites monitoring the poles of the PDO, the Alaskan Stream, and the Kamchatka/Oyashio Current.
Important fisheries-oceanographic research would be enabled by the proposed array. The moorings would provide relatively long time series of important characteristics of the upper ocean, and hence the physical environmental context for biological survey and process studies.
The array of moorings would provide the first quantitative fields of open ocean precipitation and evaporation. The fields could be used to study the effect of these processes on NWP model performance. The quality of NWP model forecasts for North America depend on the upstream conditions over the North Pacific, but it is presently unclear whether errors in these conditions are more due to inadequate data for initialization or to improper parameterization of sub-grid scale processes, especially precipitation. The mooring observations could also be used in conjunction with satellite observations to create a precipitation climatology for the North Pacific and to diagnose interannual variability.
An interdisciplinary research initiative focused on discovering critical relationships between volcanic and hydrothermal activity and the ecology, environment, and species diversity of a global subseafloor microbial biosphere
Microorganisms are a rich source of clinically useful natural products, including antibiotics, antitumor agents, and agrichemicals. While at present, most natural products of microbial origin are derived from terrestrial organisms, marine microorganisms offer an enormous and virtually untapped potential for bioactive metabolites that would never be available from terrestrial sources. Now, a vast microbial biosphere has been discovered to exist beneath the global seafloor spreading center system. This discovery can be likened, in terms of scale and biotechnical and biomedical potentials, to discovering a new rain forest ecosystem. The importance of this discovery can hardly be overemphasized in terms of it's potential for eventually yielding new treatments for increasingly drug-resistant illnesses alone.
Many of the microorganisms which live in these volcanically and hydrothermally active areas thrive at temperatures approaching, and in some cases substantially exceeding, 100° C. These organisms, primarily bacteria, are known as thermophiles; those whose optimal environmental conditions exceed 90° C are known as hyperthermophiles. Both thermophiles and hyperthermophiles produce enzymes (extremozymes) which are stable at high temperatures. These extremozymes present unique potentials for biotechnical and medicinal applications. For example, within the past several years, a number of commercially important applications for hyperthermophilic enzymes (both thermally stable polymerases and isomerases) have been discovered including DNA amplification, starch hydrolysis, hydrogen production, sucrose inversion, lactose hydrolysis, and conversion of glucose to fructose. In addition to providing the basis for unique applications, hyperthermophilic enzyme biocatalysis is characterized by faster reaction times and higher fidelity, i.e., the desired process is more efficient than what would have been achievable using conventional techniques.
Thermophiles and hyperthermophiles, in addition to being of great interest in terms of their present and potential biotechnical and medicinal applications, are scientifically fascinating as well. These microorganisms belong to a distinct, newly recognized kingdom called Archaea. At present, it is hypothesized that archaebacteria (comprised of methanogens, thermoacidophiles, and halophiles) are evolutionary ancestors of all eucaryotes, the kingdom which includes plants and animals. There is also speculation that a primitive hyperthermophile may be the ancestor of all living organisms. The biomass of subseafloor microorganisms is presently unknown but it is certainly very large, perhaps even rivaling the biomass of terrestrial organisms. Because the subseafloor microbial biosphere is so large and so widespread, it is now clear that these microorganisms are affecting the fluxes of hydrothermal chemicals, especially nutrients, that are vented to the global ocean by both steady-state and episodic processes.
NOAA has several unique and critical roles to play in the effort to understand the global subseafloor microbial biosphere and to make possible the utilization of microorganisms which inhabit it. Detection of volcanic eruptions and episodic hydrothermal activity in the deep ocean was made possible for the first time three years ago when NOAA's SOSUS acoustic monitoring system became operational in real-time. As a consequence of NOAA's research during the intervening three years, it has become clear that eruptions are literally "windows" into the biosphere. No other civilian organization in the world has NOAA's Pacific-wide detection and location capacity. NOAA's acoustic monitoring and response capabilities are the key factors which will make it possible to begin to answer some of the most important and intriguing questions about the microbial biosphere, e.g., how many species inhabit the biosphere and what is the full range of their optimal chemical and thermal environments.
NOAA's experience, gained by leading interdisciplinary investigations of several deep ocean eruptions since 1993, has made it clear that understanding interlinked physical, chemical, and biological processes associated with such events is critical to understanding how volcanic and hydrothermal activity supports the biosphere. NOAA has developed (and continues to develop) a diverse suite of in situ physical and chemical monitoring and sampling technologies that will enable it to address fundamental, multivariable questions about the nature of the biosphere environment. NOAA now has operational deep ocean in situ technology that can monitor critical chemical elements in seawater that vary, often rapidly, with time, as well as other systems that enable microbial samples to be acquired using either standard oceanographic winches, manned submersibles, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), or autonomous undersea vehicles.
NOAA is also developing deployable hydrophone arrays which can provide very high-resolution, real-time monitoring of specific regions (e.g., areas along seafloor spreading centers that are undergoing active volcanic activity).
Through its broad range of research collaborations and its unique scientific and technical activities, NOAA can become a lead agency in key elements of microbial research. NOAA can capitalize on its present capabilities which are exactly suited for NOAA to become the focal point of a program to conduct long-term, in situ monitoring, and sampling of the subseafloor microbial biosphere. The SUBMER program would then become the framework upon which both NOAA and collaborating non-NOAA scientists would begin to address key biosphere issues.
A key to success in establishing a NOAA role in subseafloor microbial research will be to create a focused partnership with the NOAA National Sea Grant program. The envisioned biosphere research fits Sea Grant national marine resources development objectives. Through a program of coordinated NOAA and Sea Grant projects, NOAA will be able to formalize research goals and objectives through a network of collaborative researchers. It is anticipated that the NOAA Office of Undersea Research, which has been responsible for co-funding much of NOAA's deep ocean sampling and monitoring technology development, as well as providing support for NOAA manned submersible and ROV access, will continue to provide such resources for NOAA's collaborative biosphere research program.
Over the past decade, NOAA has established itself as the premier U.S. agency for understanding processes, and ocean environmental impacts, of interactions between the deep ocean and the solid earth. In doing so, NOAA has not only leveraged its in-house technical and scientific expertise through formal collaborations with other federal agencies, including the U.S. Navy, but has become a key component of an NSF-sponsored complementary seafloor spreading center processes research program. NOAA maintains collaborative research relationships with virtually every major academic oceanographic university in the U.S. as well as with scientists from England, Japan, Germany, Canada, and France. These collaborations will directly contribute to achievement of NOAA's microbial biosphere research objectives.
By establishing a long-term program to study and sample the subseafloor microbial biosphere, NOAA will meet its own research objectives and it will also become an indispensable partner with other agencies' and the private sector's microbial research efforts.
Experience to date has clearly shown that new species of microorganisms are discovered at every new hydrothermal venting site. At present, it is estimated that only 1-10% of the species diversity of the biosphere has been sampled. Given the certainty that there will be many more commercially important enzymes derived from thermophilic, and especially hyperthermophilic bacteria, one first-order goal is to obtain samples that will begin to quantitatively address the issue of the diversity of species living in the subseafloor biosphere. Very recently, NOAA's deep ocean environment research has dramatically revealed that subseafloor microorganisms are particularly common in the hydrothermal plumes associated with the early stages of seafloor volcanic eruptions. Since NOAA has the only extant civilian capability for the detection of such eruptions, NOAA therefore has a singular opportunity to lead research that will result in collection of novel organisms and begin to quantitatively address the issue of the biosphere's species diversity.
NOAA presently has an internationally recognized scientific and technical expertise for
long-term, in situ sampling and monitoring of both physical and chemical variables of the deep ocean environment, particularly in volcanically and hydrothermally active areas. More specifically, NOAA has developed the ability to characterize the fluxes of heat and key chemical elements that are key factors in the dynamics of the subseafloor biosphere's ecology. A critical factor inhibiting being able to assay the bioactive properties of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic metabolites is the inability to culture many of the sampled microorganisms. NOAA has pioneered the concept of "seafloor laboratories" wherein such variables as ambient heat, organic and inorganic chemistry, and seafloor deformation are monitored, in situ, for long periods of time. Implementation of the seafloor observatory concept at a key site, or sites, will provide the information needed to help determine what environments are necessary to keep microorganisms alive once they have been brought to the surface.
This microbial effort would be leveraged (by about a factor of 6:1) with ongoing deep ocean environmental research. The cost of providing access to a single new deep ocean eruption onset alone is approximately $500K. In order to accomplish the objectives outlined above, the following resources will be required:
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$200K |
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$300K |
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$500K |
| AFSC | Alaska Fisheries Science Center |
| ACE-I, ACE-II | Aerosol Characterization Experiment I and II |
| ADCP | Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler |
| ADEOS | Advanced Earth Observing Satellite |
| AFSC | Alaska Fisheries Science Center |
| ATLAS | Autonomous Temperature Line Acquisition System (moorings) |
| BPR | Bottom Pressure Recorders |
| CARD | Coastal and Arctic Research Division |
| CGCP | Climate and Global Change Program |
| CLIVAR | Climate Variability and Prediction Program |
| CNSD | Computing and Network Services Division |
| COARE | Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment |
| COP | Coastal Ocean Program |
| DOE | Department of Energy |
| ENSO | El Niño-Southern Oscillation |
| EPIC | Equatorial Pacific Information Collection |
| ERL | Environmental Research Laboratories |
| ESDIM | Environmental Services Data and Information Management |
| FOCI | Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations |
| GEWEX | Global Energy and Water Experiment |
| GIS | Geographic Information System |
| GLOBEC | Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics |
| GOOS | Global Ocean Observing System |
| HARU | Hydrophone for Acoustic Research Underwater |
| HPCC | High Performance Computing and Communications |
| INDOEX | Indian Ocean Experiment |
| JGOFS | Joint Global Ocean Flux Study |
| JISAO | Joint Institute for Atmosphere and Oceans |
| NASA | National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
| NESDIS | National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service |
| NOAA | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
| NOS | National Ocean Service |
| NSF | National Science Foundation |
| NWP | Numerical Weather Prediction |
| OACES | Ocean-Atmosphere Carbon Exchange |
| OAR | Oceanic and Atmospheric Research |
| OCRD | Ocean Climate Research Division |
| OGP | Office of Global Programs |
| ONR | Office of Naval Research |
| OWS | Ocean Weather Station |
| PACS | Pan-American Climate Studies |
| PDO | Pacific Decadal Oscillation |
| PICES | North Pacific Marine Science Organization |
| PDO | Pacific Decadal Oscillation |
| PIRATA | Pilot Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic |
| PMEL | Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory |
| RAFOS | Inverse of SOFAR. A drifting receiver and a moored sound source |
| RIDGE | Ridge InterDisciplinary Global Experiment (program) |
| RITS | Radiatively Important Trace Species |
| SEBSCC | Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity |
| SLP | Sea Level Pressure |
| SOSUS | Sound Surveillance System |
| SST | Sea Surface Temperature |
| SUBMER | Subseafloor Biosphere: Microbial Environment Research |
| TAO | Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean Array |
| TMAP | Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean Array |
| TOGA | Thermal Mapping and Analysis Program |
| TOPEX Poseidon | Altimetry Research in Ocean Circulation (ocean surface topography satellite mission [NASA-CNES] |
| TRMM | Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission |
| UA | University of Alaska |
| VENTS | NOAA's hydrothermal research program |
| WOCE | World Ocean Circulation Experiment |
Questions or Comments?
Internet: Ann.Thomason@noaa.gov