Performance characterization and relative dispersion of drogued drifters deployed in the fjords of Nootka Sound

Senior thesis written for Oceanography 445

FORTH for NOAA/MLML Instruments

This report describes FORTH software written for several instruments used in the NASA-sponsored project to design and build Marine Optical Buoy System (MOBS) and in the NOAA-sponsored project "EOS MODIS Execution: Oceanographic Profiling, Data Acquisition and Management for the Marine Optical Buoy System·'. In the NOAA project MLML and NOAA personnel will participate in quarterly cruises at the MOBS Hawaiian site to validate performance of SeaWiFS and will participate in several extended "process" cruises to provide wide geographic surface truthing investigations similar to those lead by Dennis Clark (NOAA) following the "launch of CZCS in 1979. In the NASA project we are designing and building MOBS, a high resolution spectroradiometer that will operate autonomously in a buoy moored west of Lanai in the Hawaiian Islands. That instrument, the "Marine Optical System" (MOS), will transmit by cellular phone in near real time observations of upwelled radiance and downwelled irradiance from three depths. [PDF contains 90 pages]

Selection of materials for marine instruments

The paper describes the selection of materials for the reliable operation of oceanographic instruments. For selecting the material, raft immersion tests were carried out for one year. Results of the tests are presented. Comparisons between metals were discussed.

Oceanography during TYDEMAN cruise DCM (DeepChlorMax) to the Equatorial Atlantic

The cruise with RV Tydeman was devoted to study permanently stratified plankton systems in the (sub)tropical ocean, which are characterised by a deep chlorophyll peak between 80 and 150 m. To minimise lateral effects by horizontal transport of nutrients and organic matter from river outflow and upwelling regions, stations were selected in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean between the continents of America and Africa. (5 - 35° N and 50 - 15° W). Here the vertical distributions of light and nutrients control the abundance and growth of autotrophic algae in the thermically stratified water column. This phytoplankton is numerically dominated by the prokaryotic picoplankters Synechococcus spp. and Prochlorococcus spp., which are smaller than 2 ?m. The productivity of the 100 to 150 m deep euphotic zone can be high, because a high heterotrophic/autotrophic biomass ratio induces a rapid regeneration of nutrients and inorganic carbon. Primary grazers are mainly micro-organisms such as heterotrophic nannoflagellates and ciliates, which feed on the small algae and on bacteria. Heterotrophic bacteria can outnumber the autotrophic algae, because their number is related to the substrate pools of dissolved and particulate dead organic matter. These DOC and detritus pools reach equilibrium at a concentration, where the rate of their production (proportional to algal biomass) equals their mineralisation and sinking rate (proportional to the concentration and weight of POC and detritus). At a relatively low value of the weight-specific loss rates, the equilibrium concentration of these carbon pools and their load of bacteria can be high. The bacterial productivity is proportional to the mineralisation rate, which in a steady state can never be higher than the rate of primary production. Hence the ratio in turnover rate of bacteria and autotrophs tends to be reciprocally proportional to their biomass ratio.