U.S.
Dept of Commerce / NOAA / OAR /PMEL |
Eddie Bernard, Ph.D.
Director, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
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Education
- PhD, Physical Oceanography, Texas A & M, 1976
- MS, Physical Oceanography, Texas A & M, 1970
- BS, Physics, Lamar University, 1969
Dr. Eddie Bernard has served as Director of the Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory, one of NOAA's Oceanographic Research Laboratories, since 1983.
He directs a broad range of oceanographic research programs including ocean
climate dynamics, fisheries oceanography, El Niño forecasts, tsunamis,
and seafloor spreading.
Under his leadership, PMEL has contributed the following to society:
- Completion of the Pacific TAO array, the world's largest ocean observing
system, in December 1994. The Pacific TAO array, consisting of seventy
moored buoys in the equatorial wave guide, measure and relay surface
wind, sea surface temperature, upper ocean temperatures and currents,
air temperature, and relative humidity in real-time via satellite. TAO
data are a major source of information about variability in the Tropical
Pacific and are used in operational weather forecasting and El Nino
prediction. TAO data have been especially valuable for detecting, forecasting,
and understanding the evolution of the 1997-98 El Nino, the largest
of the 20th century and the first El Nino to occur since the completion
of the array.
- The Fisheries-Oceanography Coordinated Investigations (FOCI) scientists
developed the Shelikof Recruitment Index (SRI) in 1992 based on process-oriented
studies, field surveys, and numerical modeling experiments. This index
is used to predict the abundance of age-0 and age-1 walleye pollock
that will survive to recruit to the Shelikof Strait, Gulf of Alaska,
fishery as adults. SRI incorporates environmental estimates such as
rainfall, wind mixing, advection, and larval abundance. Predictions
by SRI compare favorably with actual recruitment. Together with spawning
biomass estimates also produced by FOCI, the index provides fishery-independent
information that helps National Marine Fisheries Service stock assessment
scientists project future stock sizes. These projections advise the
North Pacific Fishery Management Council, who establish fishing quotas
for the Gulf of Alaska.
- FOCI's observations in the Bering Sea led to the discovery and naming
of a new current, the Aleutian North Slope Current (ANSC). By measuring
hydrography, trajectories of satellite-tracked drift buoys, and current
velocities on the north side of the Aleutian Islands, PMEL scientists
determined that there was a persistent, well-defined, eastward flow
with significant transport in regions that had been identified historically
as only sometimes having weak, eastward flow. The ANSC is made up of
relatively warm, nutrient-rich water whose source is the Alaskan Stream,
some of which enters the Bering Sea through the deep passes of the Aleutian
Islands. Water properties borne by the ANSC are important to the ecology
of the eastern Bering Sea shelf, e.g., the spawning success of walleye
pollock.
- PMEL scientists acquired the first multibeam swath sonar mapping system
and generated the first high-resolution bathymetric maps of the entire
northeast Pacific portion of the global seafloor spreading center system.
These maps led eventually to the discovery that seafloor volcanic eruptions
produce episodic heat and chemical perturbations in the overlying water
column that can double the heat and mass fluxes from a ridge segment
to the ocean.
- PMEL oceanographers developed a real-time acoustic event detection
and location system using the U.S. Navy's Pacific network of hydrophone
arrays. This capability was used to detect the onset of a deep volcanic
eruption off the coast of Oregon in 1993. This enabled NOAA scientists
to document, for the first time ever, an example of the most common
type of volcanic eruption on Earth while it was active. This event and
detection system is also being used to locate and track marine mammals
in collaboration with the NMFS.
- PMEL engineers and scientists pioneered the development of a deep-ocean
tsunami monitoring network consisting of an array of bottom pressure
recorders in the north Pacific Ocean and generated high quality tsunami
inundation maps for three U.S. coastal communities historically threatened
by the tsunami hazard.
Dr. Bernard joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
in 1970 as a research oceanographer. From 1973 to 1977, Dr. Bernard developed
numerical models to study the dynamics of tsunamis at the Joint Tsunami
Research Effort in Honolulu. One model was transferred to the USSR during
the US/USSR bilateral effort on tsunami warnings in the Pacific. From
1977 to 1980, Dr. Bernard served as director of the National Tsunami Warning
Center in Honolulu where he applied computer technology in automating
much of the warning operations.
Prior to his service with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
Dr. Bernard served as an exploration geophysicist for a major oil company.
As a noted oceanographer and expert on tsunamis, Dr. Bernard has edited
two books and published over 70 scientific papers, articles, and reports.
He is past Chairman of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program,
a joint Federal/State effort (1997-2004) and past-chairman of the International
Union of Geodesy and Geophysics' Tsunami Commission (1987-1995). He is
a member of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program Steering Group,
the American Geophysical Union, and the Oceanographic Society. His university
affiliations include membership on the administrative boards of the Joint
Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (University of Hawaii);
the Joint Institute for Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (University
of Washington; the Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research (University
of Alaska); Advisory Board for the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources
Studies, College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and the Cooperative
Institute for Ocean Remote Sensing (Oregon State University); and the
Joint Institute for Marine Observations (University of California, San
Diego, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography). He is a member of the
Washington Sea Grant Steering Committee and an advisor for the Japan Agency
for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the College of Ocean and Atmospheric
Sciences at Oregon State University.
Dr. Bernard has produced a scientific movie on tsunami research and
has been featured in over 20 television specials on tsunamis, including
the
National Geographic Society Special on tsunamis. He is a member of Sigma
Pi Sigma and is listed in American Men and Women in Science, Who's
Who in America, Who's Who in the West, and Who's Who in Science
and Engineering. He has received numerous honors and awards for
outstanding performance in NOAA--including the Presidential Meritorious
Rank Award
in 1993 and again in 2002. In 1984 he was honored as a recipient of Esquire
Magazine's
Best of the New Generation Award.
Contact Information Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
7600 Sand Point Way N. E.
Seattle, Washington 98115-6349
(206) 526-6800
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