An Ocean First: Underwater Drone Tracks CO2 In Alaska Gulf
May 26th, 2022
Via AP News, an article on the use of underwater drones to to measure carbon dioxide levels in the ocean:
In the cold, choppy waters of Alaska’s Resurrection Bay, all eyes were on the gray water, looking for one thing only.
It wasn’t a spout from humpback whales that power through this scenic fjord, or a sea otter lazing on its back, munching a king crab.
Instead, everyone aboard the Nanuq, a University of Alaska Fairbanks research vessel, was looking where a 5-foot (1.52-meter) long, bright pink underwater sea glider surfaced.
The glider — believed to be the first configured with a large sensor to measure carbon dioxide levels in the ocean — had just completed its first overnight mission.
Designed to dive 3,281 feet (1,000 meters) and roam remote parts of the ocean, the autonomous vehicle was deployed in the Gulf of Alaska this spring to provide a deeper understanding of the ocean’s chemistry in the era of climate change. The research could be a major step forward in ocean greenhouse gas monitoring, because until now, measuring CO2 concentrations — a quantifier of ocean acidification — was mostly done from ships, buoys and moorings tethered to the ocean floor.
“Ocean acidification is a process by which humans are emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through their activities of burning fossil fuels and changing land use,” said Andrew McDonnell, an oceanographer with the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Oceans have done humans a huge favor by taking in some of the C02. Otherwise, there would be much more in the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and warming the Earth.
“But the problem is now that the ocean is changing its chemistry because of this uptake,” said Claudine Hauri, an oceanographer with the International Arctic Research Center at the university.
The enormous amount of data collected is being used to study ocean acidification that can harm and kill certain marine life.
Rising acidity of the oceans is affecting some marine organisms that build shells. This process could kill or make an organism more susceptible to predators.
Over several weeks this spring, Hauri and McDonnell, who are married, worked with engineers from Cyprus Subsea Consulting and Services, which provided the underwater glider, and 4H-Jena, a German company that provided the sensor inserted into the drone.
Most days, researchers took the glider farther and farther into Resurrection Bay from the coastal community of Seward to conduct tests.
After its first nighttime mission, a crew member spotted it bobbing in the water, and the Nanuq — the Inupiat word for polar bear — backed up to let people pull the 130-pound (59-kilogram) glider onto the ship. Then the sensor was removed from the drone and rushed into the ship’s cabin to upload its data.
Think of the foot-tall (0.30-meter) sensor with a diameter of 6 inches (15.24 centimeters) as a laboratory in a tube, with pumps, valves and membranes moving to separate the gas from seawater. It analyzes CO2 and it logs and stores the data inside a temperature-controlled system. Many of these sensor components use battery power.
Since it’s the industry standard, the sensor is the same as found on any ship or lab working with CO2 measurements.
Hauri said using this was “a huge step to be able to accommodate such a big and power hungry sensor, so that’s special about this project.”
“I think she is one of the first persons to actually utilize (gliders) to measure CO2 directly, so that’s very, very exciting,” said Richard Feely, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s senior scientist at the agency’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. He said Hauri was a graduate student in 2007 when she accompanied him on the first acidification cruise he ever led.
The challenge, Feely said, is to make the measurements on a glider with the same degree of accuracy and precision as tests on board ships.
“We need to get confidence in our measurements and confidence in our models if we are going to make important scientific statements about how the oceans are changing over time and how it’s going to impact our important economic systems that are dependent on the food from the sea,” he said, noting that acidification impacts are already seen in the Pacific Northwest on oysters, Dungeness crabs and other species.
Researchers in Canada had previously attached a smaller, prototype CO2 sensor to an underwater drone in the Labrador Sea but found it did not yet meet the targets for ocean acidification observations.
“The tests showed that the glider sensor worked in a remote-harsh environment but needed more development,” Nicolai von Oppeln-Bronikowski, the Glider Program Manager with the Ocean Frontier Institute at Memorial University of Newfoundland, said in an email.
The two teams are “just using two different types of sensors to solve the same issue, and it’s always good to have two different options,” Hauri said.
There is no GPS unit inside the underwater autonomous drone. Instead, after being programmed, it heads out on its own to cruise the ocean according to the navigation directions — knowing how far to go down in the water column, when to sample, and when to surface and send a locator signal so it can be retrieved.
As the drone tests were underway, the U.S. research vessel Sikuliaq, owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the university, conducted its own two-week mission in the gulf to take carbon and pH samples as part of ongoing work each spring, summer and fall.
Those methods are limited to collecting samples from a fixed point while the glider will be able to roam all over the ocean and provide researchers with a wealth of data on the ocean’s chemical makeup.
The vision is to one day have a fleet of robotic gliders operating in oceans across the globe, providing a real-time glimpse of current conditions and a way to better predict the future.
“We can … understand much more about what’s going on in the ocean than we have been before,” McDonnell said.
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Read More »Unearthing A World Under The Waves
May 22nd, 2022
Courtesy of National Geographic, an article on the application of space exploration technology to marine systems in an effort to expose life on Earth – and help protect it:
National Geographic Explorer Ved Chirayath has contemplated life outside of Earth since he can remember. By five years old, he was determined to work for NASA. His steps were carefully plotted: study astrophysics, continue his education in Russia, and earn a graduate degree from Stanford University. And though he was just a boy when he first ideated the ambitious plans, he has managed to achieve it all.
Now, with a trail of astronomy achievements under his belt, Chirayath, a researcher, photographer, and inventor, is putting a spin on his childhood dreams by redirecting his focus from the skies to Earth’s ocean.
“I’ve spent a lot of time looking at space, and there’s just nothing that compares to the beauty and the wonder that is under the sea,” Chirayath says, adding that of the new worlds he’s hoped to find “ours is the coolest one I can see to the edge of our solar system.”
While collective human interest seems to have largely favored the stars, Chirayath sees the urgency in exploring planet Earth.“We have the ability to see and even redirect a potential asteroid collision,” he goes on, “but there’s a separate cataclysmic, extinction-level event happening now, and that’s climate change.”
Nature’s ability to survive under extreme conditions is evident, Chirayath points out. “I think the question that’s now coming in front of our species is ‘will humans be part of the future of life on Earth?’”
His conviction to protect the planet came after years spent in search of life elsewhere. Library texts and astronomy club peers helped him engineer his own telescopes, which, through various trials, grew larger in size. By the time he was 16, Chirayath had discovered a planet, intentionally using only amateur equipment available to the average stargazer–a consumer digital camera, which he modified with the correct sensitivity, strapped to a telescope.
By tracking changes in the brightness of a star that the planet orbited, Chirayath would prove he had indeed detected something new outside the atmosphere, roughly one-and-a-half times the size of Jupiter and traveling fast. This discovery landed Chirayath a scholarship for the next phase of living out his childhood ambitions, continuing his studies in Russia.
While earning his undergraduate degree in particle physics in Moscow, he worked as a fashion photographer for Vogue. It was a way “to do something different and help pay the bills,” Chirayath laughs, and since, his photography has splashed the pages of the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Elle.
He went on to pursue his graduate studies in aeronautics and astronautics, during which he built an instrument capable of flying on electric fields, inspired by aircrafts seen on “Star Trek.”
Blending his interest in photography and space technology, Chirayath directed his lens to the cosmos, and eventually, the ocean floor.
“I got into astronomy imaging, and that was incredibly rewarding for me because it’s like getting the chance to look into the sea, but without all of the challenges of the water,” he explains.
Through a decade-long career at NASA, Chirayath has directed the Laboratory for Advanced Sensing (LAS) at the space research giant’s Ames Center in California’s Silicon Valley. His focus has been on designing the next generation of sensing technologies to better understand this world and explore the universe beyond. This led to two major inventions: an instrument called a FluidCam, capable of seeing through ocean waves clearly in a process called fluid lensing and its more powerful successor, which Chirayath named MiDAR.
He is currently the director of the Aircraft Center for Earth Studies at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science where they use next-generation scientific platforms to explore the Earth’s atmosphere as well as ocean systems.
Since 2012, Chirayath has transitioned from searching for life elsewhere in the universe to uncovering and protecting marine ecosystems on Earth. The shift, he says, he owes in part to meeting sea exploration pioneer and fellow National Geographic Explorer, Sylvia Earle.
“She pulled me aside in the way that she does and she said, ‘you can take all of your talents and devote them to space. You can also devote them to protecting Earth, and here’s why you should do it,’” Chirayath remembers.
“I still feel like I’m doing the same science. You’re looking at dark objects and it just happens to be the telescope is no longer pointing up, it’s pointing down,” he laughs.
But the experience is dramatically different. Moving away from “doing astronomy on a cold mountaintop alone to being surrounded by life in the water” solidified Chirayath’s decision to shift gears.
Rather than look for potential life in space, he recognized the abundance of it right in front of him–begging to be stewarded.
He’s currently using drones capable of seeing through waves, applying sensing technologies he designated for space, to map and photograph shallow marine systems in hopes of inspiring appreciation for seldom-seen lifeforms and an urgency to protect them.
Using the FluidCam, Chirayath has been able to map and photograph the ocean up to 45 feet deep. With around a dozen surveying missions conducted using the technology, Chirayath estimates he’s mapped around 200 square kilometers of shallow ocean ecosystems and has high hopes for MiDAR to go deeper and further in the future.
These ocean missions also inform NeMO-Net, a video game he created in which players help NASA classify coral reefs and other shallow marine environments all over the world. He’s interested in using his technology to quantify the amount of microplastics in the ocean, identify where they’re concentrated, and help put a stop to their flow.
“It’s not entirely hopeless,” he says, marveling at nature’s resilience.
Through his expeditions, Chirayath has found everything from a diver’s rope to lost cell phones. “Anything you can imagine,” he says, can end up at the bottom of the ocean. But one of his fondest memories took place closer to the surface.
While diving in Samoa’s seas he recalls repeat visits by a baby octopus. “Every day it would kind of play hide and seek and follow me around and you could just see its intelligence,” he remembers.
“It would come say hello, then sit and go and watch for a while, then move a little bit and play a game with me. I just thought that feeling, that sense of connection with another life form, that only exists on Earth,” he says.
Appreciation for the planet and its inhabitants, Chirayath explains, is key in inspiring care for it.
“I wish everyone had the chance to go to space so you can see how dependent you are on oxygen, water, the fruit that miraculously grows on trees. The minute you get to another planet, you see this is what it could be like if you don’t preserve things,” he urges.
Ultimately, he’s invested in looking at life, in all of its forms whether on Earth or beyond. And though life may be lurking in outer space, he admits it could be very far and very rare. While exploration across the universe continues, he says there are plenty of wonders at humans’ feet.
“To better understand other life on Earth makes the whole universe seem a little bit smaller, more tangible, and connected.”
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Read More »Remote Sensing: Tracking Damage and Helping Find Solutions As Well
May 3rd, 2022
Via The Conversation, a look at how satellites over the Amazon capture the choking of the ‘house of God’ by the Belo Monte Dam – and how they can help find solutions too:
The Xingu River is revered as the “house of God” by the Indigenous people living along its Volte Grande, or Big Bend, in the Brazilian Amazon. The river is essential to their culture and religion, and a crucial source of fish, transportation and water for trees and plants.
Five years ago, the Big Bend was a broad river valley interwoven with river channels teaming with fish, turtles and other wildlife. Today, as much as 80% of the water flow is gone.
That’s because in late 2015, the massive Belo Monte Dam project began redirecting water from the Xingu River upstream from the Big Bend, channeling it through a canal to a giant new reservoir. The reservoir now powers one of the largest hydropower dams in the world, designed with enough capacity to power around 20 million households, though it has been producing far less.
Most of the river’s flow now bypasses the Big Bend, and the Indigenous peoples who live there are watching their livelihoods and way of life become endangered. Some of the most devastating effects are during the rainy season, when wildlife and trees rely heavily on having high water. The consortium of utilities and mining companies that runs the dam has pushed back on government orders to allow more water to reach the Big Bend, claiming it would cut their generation and profits. The group has argued in the past that there was no scientific proof that the change in water flow harmed fish or turtles.
There is proof of the Belo Monte Dam project’s impact on the Big Bend, though – from above. Satellite data shows how dramatically the dam has altered the hydrology of the river there.
The same satellite data can also point to potential solutions and ways that operators of the Belo Monte Dam could revise the dam’s operations to keep both its renewable power and the Xingu River flowing at the most important times of the year.
As scientists who work with remote sensing, we believe satellite observations can empower populations around the world who face threats to their resources. The fact that satellite observations of surface water of the Xingu River can be clearly tied to the construction and operation of the Belo Monte Dam offers hope that this kind of knowledge can no longer be hidden.
50 years of Earth observation
Satellites have been monitoring changes in Earth’s landscapes for 50 years, ever since the U.S. launched the first Landsat satellite in July 1972. By piecing together data from the Landsat program and other satellites, scientists can reconstruct historical patterns of change in the landscape and predict current and future trends. They can monitor forest cover, drought, wildfire damage and desert expansion, as well as river flows and reservoir operations around the world.
An example of how that data can be used to help threatened communities is the global Reservoir Assessment Tool, which was created by colleagues and one of us at the University of Washington. It monitors how much water is in about 1,600 reservoirs around the world.
Screenshot of the tool showing a map of Brazil and an example dam’s chart of water outflow.
The Reservoir Assessment Tool allows communities to track river flow changes caused by nearby dams and locate proposed dams. It currently tracks dams built before 2000. University of Washington
Dam operators already collect thorough on-site data about water flow, but their datasets are rarely shared with the public. Remote sensing doesn’t face the same restrictions. Making that data public can help hold operators to account for and protect local communities and their rivers.How satellites could pressure Belo Monte to share
Satellite monitoring can provide unprecedented insight into the operations of dams like the Belo Monte and their impact on downstream populations.
Existing satellite data can be used to monitor recent historical behavior of a dam’s operations, track the state of the river and patterns of inflow and outflow at the dam, and even forecast the likely state of the reservoir. Much of that data is easily accessible and free. For example, a tool created for the regional governing body of the Mekong River Commission is empowering communities along the river in Southeast Asia by giving them access to satellite data about water flow at each dam – data that cannot be hidden or modified by those in power.
While estimates based on remote sensing have higher uncertainty than on-site measurements, unfettered access to such information can provide local populations with evidence to argue, in court if necessary, for more water releases.
Long-term observations of dams and hydroclimate records show it is possible to revise the standard operating procedures of dams so they allow more water to flow downstream when needed. A compromise with the Belo Monte Dam could ensure that enough water flows to the Xingu’s Big Bend region while also providing hydropower benefits.
By making the impact of the Belo Monte Dam and others like it public to the world, agencies and the general public can put pressure on the dam’s operators and its investors to release more water. Public pressure will become increasingly important, as water disputes in the Amazon are expected to worsen as the planet warms and deforestation continues. Climate change will affect river flow patterns in the Amazon and likely increase droughts, leaving less water during some periods.
A tool for social justice
The Amazonian native population has declined, and dams and nearby mining operations, like those threatening the Xingu’s Big Bend region, play a role. The current Brazilian government under president Jair Bolsonaro has generally sided with wealthy landowners and industry over Indigenous peoples, making access to independent data crucial for protecting these communities.
Monitoring dams is a powerful way satellites can make a difference. Nearly two-thirds of Brazil’s electricity comes from more than 200 large and 400-plus small hydropower plants, and more large dams are expected to be built in the Amazon this decade. Many are in areas with Indigenous populations.
Remote sensing may not directly solve the problem of social injustice, but it offers the tools needed to recognize the problems and explore solutions. Being able to monitor changes in near-real time and compare them with historical operations can help maintain the checks and balances required for equitable growth.
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