The phytoplankton of the North Atlantic bloom play a major role in pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in the ocean. An ambitious collaborative experiment in the North Atlantic near Iceland was led to coincide with the bloom in 2008. The challenge of the experiment was to characterize the bloom's temporal and spatial evolutions of physics, biology, and chemistry over its entire duration.

This dynamic webinar series features the research of scientists from the North Atlantic Bloom (NAB) Experiment and focuses on key concepts in ocean science. The five-part series consists of presentations from NAB scientists, and tells the story of the North Atlantic spring phytoplankton bloom and its role in the ocean ecosystem.

APL-UW oceanographers and their colleagues at WHOI and Univ. of Maine report in Science on a new physical mechanism discovered in the North Atlantic Ocean. Eddies convert horizontal density gradients to vertical ones, causing a stratification that brings the phytoplankton to the sunlit surface where they can grow.

This study seeks to understand the processes that control physical and bio-optical variability in the Japan/East Sea including the upper ocean response to strong wintertime atmospheric forcing; watermass formation, subduction and spreading; dynamics of the subpolar front; and to characterize cross-front and cross-shelf bio-optical transitions.

The Adriatic Sea provides a unique laboratory in which oceanographers can study the ocean's response to atmospheric forcing at small (10 km) lateral scales and investigate the processes that communicate atmospheric forcing events (seasonal winds and freshwater flows) to the ocean interior.

A coordinated domestic and international effort quantifies the variability of fluxes connecting the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and seeks to understand the role played by the Arctic and sub-Arctic in steering decadal scale climate variability; we will make year-round measurements of volume, liquid freshwater, and ice fluxes across Davis Strait.

This collaborative project with Dr. Harper Simmons (U. Alaska), aims to construct a global map of low-mode internal tide energy flux and dissipation by application of state-of-the-art techniques to a combination of satellite altimetry, moorings, and a numerical model.

The Japan/East Sea exhibits many of the dynamical and biological features found in larger oceans, including deep water formation, subduction, boundary inputs, fronts, eddies, and biological zonation. This, combined with the basin's modest size and easy logistics, makes the Japan/East Sea an excellent laboratory for pursuing oceanographic studies with modern instruments and approaches. Building on the work of previous investigations, the Office of Naval Research sponsored an intensive observation and modeling program that explored the sea's physical, chemical, and biological systems. The program's data products, published papers, and reports are now accumulated and presented through one user interface.

The primary purpose of the cruise is to deploy the NEMO (Northwest Enhanced Moored Observatory) moorings off the Washington coast in water about 100 m deep. While at sea, the team will also conduct science experiments to detect and track non-linear internal waves (NLIWs) traveling across the continental shelf break. Surveys with an echo sounder and the towed body SWIMS will be run from the shelf break toward the mooring location as well as in the Juan de Fuca Canyon.

Origins of the Kuroshio and Mindanao Currents

The boundary currents off the east coast of the Philippines are of critical importance to the general circulation of the Pacific Ocean. The westward flowing North Equatorial Current (NEC) runs into the Philippine coast and bifurcates into the northward Kuroshio and the southward Mindanao Current. Quantifying these flows and understanding bifurcation dynamics are essential to improving predictions of regional circulation and Pacific Ocean climate. We have deployed five HPIES off NE Luzon Island under the Kuroshio and nine EM-APEX floats in the NEC as it flows westward toward the Philippine Islands.

Salinity Processes in the Upper-Ocean Regional Study (SPURS)

In conjunction with the new Aquarius satellite mission, which will measure sea surface salinity from space, this project aims to directly measure an annual cycle of upper ocean salinity in the North Atlantic using by high-resolution glider surveys.

The AUV Seaglider is used to study the seasonal and interannual variability in ACC freshwater content and transport, the ACC's role in governing springtime mixed layer evolution over the shelf, the processes controlling temporal and spatial variability in the spring bloom, and the processes that may produce onshore nutrient flux.

The Blue Water Acoustics Research group is a multidisciplinary team of investigators committed to solving the fundamental physical problems of oceanic acoustic propagation across ocean basins. Our inquiry is focused to maximize application to tactical and environmental monitoring systems. Includes the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory (NPAL) and the Long-range Ocean Acoustic Propagation Experiment (LOAPEX).

APL-UW is leading a consortium of glider developers in advanced research and development to improve underwater glider systems for environmental characterizations during naval operation. Improvements include a common command control and display/transfer interface for use across all existing glider designs - the GLMPC system.

We have developed a system of inductively charging a McLane profiler from a large bank of underwater batteries (actually 5100 "D" cells). The goal is to enable the profiler to profile the entire water column every hour or so for a whole year, which represents a ten-fold advance over current capabilities.

Lagrangian floats, designed to follow the water parcel that surrounds them, are deployed by aircraft ahead of hurricanes. As the hurricane passes they sample the evolving surface mixed layer and then surface to telemeter their data by satellite to scientists.

The AESOP Departmental Research Initiative (DRI) seeks to create an intellectual framework for assessing the impact of submesoscale ocean parameterizations on synoptic predictions of the ocean state using numerical models. The focus of this effort is to develop metrics and methods to assess existing parameterizations and consequent improvements, rather than to develop new parameterizations.

An intensive observational program to study typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean collected the largest set of oceanographic and atmospheric data ever before, during, and after the passage of tropical cyclones.

Gravity waves that originate near Hawaii propagate under the surface across the Pacific to ultimately break on the continental slope near Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.

Changes in Seasonality in the Arctic Ocean

The Arctic sea ice cover impedes the generation and damps the propagation of surface and internal waves. As more and more of the deep Arctic Ocean becomes ice-free in the summer, wind-driven inertial waves and mixing are likely to become increasingly important. This project studies the consequences of the decreasing ice cover on the stratification of the upper ocean as well as its impacts on the geochemistry and biological productivity of the Arctic system.

DIMES is a US/UK field program aimed at measuring diapycnal and isopycnal mixing in the Southern Ocean, along the tilting isopycnals of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

An intensive research program in the Monterey Submarine Canyon that combines observations and numerical modelling to understand internal tide dynamics in the canyon is led by APL-UW and Univ. of Hawaii oceanographers.

With field work in the summers of 2010 and 2011, this project focuses on understanding the mechanisms controlling the generation of internal tides in the two-ridge system of Luzon Strait, along with their propagation, contribution to mixing (dissipation) and interaction with the Kuroshio.

A field study of the interleaving features in the Subtropical Frontal Zone (STFZ) of the North Pacific Ocean was conducted from in July 2007. The experiment encompassed hydrographic surveying with a towed depth-cycling conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) platform SWIMS, microstructure profiling, shipboard velocity observations, and Lagrangian float releases.

Lateral Mixing

Small scale eddies and internal waves in the ocean mix water masses laterally, as well as vertically. This multi-investigator project aims to study the physics of this mixing by combining dye dispersion studies with detailed measurements of the velocity, temperature and salinity field during field experiments in 2011 and 2012.

The Samoan Passage, 5500 m beneath the sea surface, is one of the "choke points" in the abyssal circulation. A veritable river of Antarctic Bottom water flows through it on its way into the North Pacific. As it enters the constriction, substantial turbulence, hydraulic processes and internal waves must occur, which modify the water. The overall goal is to understand these deep processes and the way they impact the flow, and to develop a strategy for eventually monitoring the flow through the Passage.

An integrated program of observations and numerical simulations will focus on understanding ice–ocean–atmosphere dynamics in and around the MIZ, with particular emphasis on quantifying changes associated with decreasing ice cover. The MIZ measurement program will employ a novel mix of autonomous technologies (ice-based instrumentation, floats, drifters, and gliders) to characterize the processes that govern Beaufort Sea MIZ evolution from initial breakup and MIZ formation though the course of the summertime sea ice retreat.