Scott M. Glenn - US grants

9311080 Able, K. The Rutgers University Marine Field Station is located near Tuckerton, New Jersey, at the mouth of the Mullica River - Great Bay Estuary. The entire watershed of this estuary is protected within the New Jersey National Pinelands Reserve. The station provides easy access to extensive salt marsh and estuarine habitats in the cleanest estuary on the northeast coast, and to a site at 15 m depth on the continental shelf where studies on hydrodynamic processes, sediment resuspension and transport, larval and juvenile settlement and recruitment of commercial species of fish and invertebrates, and bottom boundary layer prosses affecting benthic communities are being conducted. A Long-Term Ecosystem Observatory has been established at this site to track episodic and long-term changes in important environmental parameters. This project will 1) enhance the ability to transport and maintain invertebrates and fishes from the estray and continental shelf under controlled temperatures, and 2) improve data collection at the site on environmental factors fundamental to a number of the studies there, e.g., additional components for an existing meteorological station, a salinometer and a fluorometer. ***

9528239 Munchow In this project, the PIs will conduct an observational study of coastal upwelling circulation on a wide continental shelf -- the mid-Atlantic Bight off New Jersey. The objectives are: 1. To resolve the mass balance, as to whether it is two or three- dimensional; 2. To determine the primary subsurface across-shelf transport pathway and the dynamical importance of along-shelf pressure gradient; 3. To determine criteria for formation of an upwelling front, and find its role in the mass and heat fluxes; 4. To determine where the zone of maximum upwelling occurs; and, 5. To find the principal terms in the heat budget. A variety of moored and ship-board instruments, and satellite-tracked drifters, as well as satellite imagery of temperature and color will be used.

P.I. Chant, Robert (Rutgers) Proposal #: 0238957

Proposal Title: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Lagrangian studies of the transport, transformation, and biological impact of nutrients and contaminant metals in a buoyant plume

Project Summary

This proposal was funded under the auspices of the Coastal Ocean Processes Program (CoOP) in response to the "Buoyancy-Driven Transport Processes" announcement of opportunity (NSF 02-059). This announcement called for proposals investigating processes that control buoyancy-driven systems influenced by freshwater inflows.

The PIs propose a coordinated program of field and numerical experiments to examine processes that control the fate and transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants in the Hudson River plume. Urban estuarine plumes such as this one represent a major pathway for the transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants to the coastal ocean. The fates and transports of this material are controlled not only by the plume dynamics but also by biological and chemical processes coupled to the dynamics of the plume. To investigate these processes, the PIs propose to conduct a series of dye experiments along with continuous underway chemical and biological sampling using a towed vehicle. These experiments will occur within the framework of the LEO-15 Observatory to enable interpretation of the dye study by placing the Lagrangian surveys in context with shelf-wide observations from satellite imagery, surface currents and far-field subsurface hydrography. LEO-15 will be augmented by a cross shelf array of moored instruments to provide detailed estimates of subtidal circulation, stratification and Reynold stresses. In addition, data-assimilative numerical simulations will provide high resolution and realistic hindcasts of the coastal ocean during the field experiments. The modeling will assimilate the dye-tracer data into a 3-D coastal circulation model and guide future efforts to assimilate other tracers into circulation models with complex sources and sinks.
The major aims of this work are to distinguish between physical processes that transport/mix material in a buoyant plume from biological and chemical transformation processes as well as the quantification of biological and chemical interactions in a Lagrangian perspective to provide a means to assess their importance in determining the fate and transport of nutrients and chemical contaminants in a buoyant plume. The proposed experimental plan will contrast the response of physical, biological, and chemical processes in the Hudson plume during upwelling and downwelling conditions. A major outcome of this work will be the determination of the extent and biological impact of contaminants in the plume along the New Jersey coast and Middle Atlantic Bight and will improve the ability to predict the fate and transport of contaminants and the rate that they enter the base of the food chain in the coastal ocean.

COSEE-NOW proposes to use information generated by ocean observing systems (OOS) as a powerful platform to enhance public literacy about the ocean and stimulate public support for ocean research. The mission of COSEE-NOW is to enable use of transformative ocean research and effective education practices to inspire students and the general public in ocean exploration, discovery, and stewardship. COSEE-NOW has identified three key areas of investment that combine the resources and experiences of the project PIs to promote high-quality OOS education and public outreach (EPO) and contribute to the COSEE network. The goals include:

[1] Assess the knowledge and needs of target OOS audiences: The PIs propose to survey target audiences including the K-16 students/teachers, policy/decision makers, and the science literate public to understand their awareness, knowledge, and attitudes related to OOS. The results of these needs assessments will enable COSEE-NOW and OOS EPO providers to develop useful products while increasing awareness of OOS and its relevance to these audiences.
[2] Improve collaboration and coordination among scientists and educators in the OOS community. This proposed effort will support EPO programs within existing OOS networks while helping to develop planned OOS initiatives. Our work will increase the effective translation and dissemination of scientific data and knowledge to broader audiences and improve use of effective education practices among scientists in the OOS community.
[3] Increase public awareness of Ocean Observing Systems. COSEE-NOW is externally focused on building public awareness of OOS through innovative media products, K-12 classroom applications, and free-choice learning environments. Through this goal, we expect to increase awareness of OOS and ocean literacy concepts among a variety of target audiences.

COSEE-NOW is composed of an accomplished team uniquely qualified to conduct the proposed tasks. COSEE-NOW includes core partners in formal education (Rutgers University), informal education (Liberty Science Center), and research (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution). Project partners including Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), Stevens Institute of Technology- Center for Innovation in Engineering & Science Education (CIESE), Monterey Peninsula College- Marine Advanced Technology Center (MATE), and Word Craft also contribute to the COSEE-NOW team.

This proposal develops, deploys and evaluates a prototype pervasive dynamic oceanographic ecosystem that integrates sensors, networks, observatories, and computational algorithms to enable dynamic data driven application systems research (DDDAS) in oceanography and in particular the study of anoxia and hypoxia off the coast of New Jersey.
The research findings are also incorporated in cross-disciplinary research curricula (across SOE, FAS and MCS) to provide students with the skills needed by the rapidly expanding network of research and applied observatories being constructed. New research methods in distributed resource allocation, distributed simulation environments, nonlinear dynamic system theory for swarming and computer vision learning methods are used to achieve the proposed goals. The result and impact of this DDDAS framework, is to integrate computational infrastructure that includes computers, networks, data archives, instruments, observatories, experiments, and embedded sensors and actuators, to address important national and global challenges such as
(1) safe and efficient navigation and marine operations, (2) efficient oil and hazardous material spill trajectory prediction and clean up, (3) monitoring, predicting and mitigating coastal hazards, (4) military operations, (5) search and rescue, and (6) prediction of harmful algal blooms, hypoxic conditions, and other ecosystem or water quality phenomena.

Proposal #: CNS 08-21607
PI(s): Metaxas, Dimitris N.
Glenn, Scott M.; Kremer, Ulrich; Parashar, Manish; Schofield, Oscar
Institution: Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8559
Title: MRI/Dev.: Dev. of Next Generation Collaborative Underwater Robotic Instrument
Project Proposed:
This project, developing the next generation of Collaborative Underwater Robotic Instrument (CURI), targets empirically-anchored investigations based on the deployment of a semi-Langragian network of biologically inspired autonomous robots. This new instrument consists of a collection of new underwater glider robots, a computer cluster, and monitors for Human-CURI interaction (along with novel hardware and software), capable of exhibiting biologically inspired autonomous cooperative behaviors such as swarming, maneuvering efficiently, sensing, and making decisions. Among others goals, the work aims to be able to track and map a water mass over time and to assess how a water column mixing in ocean water drives local primary productivity over time. CURI, developed as a collaborative effort between the institution and Webb Research (manufacturers of current robotics gliders), will exhibit and allow
- Biologically inspired behaviors such as swarming,
- Decision making (in uncertain conditions) based on the integration of multi-dimensional, multi-scale, and multi-sensory data,
- Human-CURI interaction to help guide the mission goals of the large number of underwater robotic vehicles, and
- Underwater communication among the robots of the CURI based on the implementation of ideas from distributed and adaptive non-fixed topology networks which include middleware, metadata, and low power protocols for underwater communications.
Leveraging significant NSF, ONR, NOAA, USGS, DHS, and other agency investments, CURI will be tested in the linked ecosystems of the densely populated NY-NJ metropolitan area, the Hudson River watershed and estuary, and the adjacent coastal ocean of the Mid-Atlantic, as well as Polar and Tropical environments. The diverse data gathered will provide foundation for computational analysis and modeling.
Broader Impacts:
This development has strong multidisciplinary components that involve control, algorithms, marine science, statistical learning, dynamic systems, human-computer interaction (HCI), and distributed systems. The work is applicable in many areas that involve large-scale, distributed modeling of coordinated behaviors of individual units and their interaction with the environment. Thus, current and future oceanographic applications are expected, including improved modeling of the Coastal Hydrologic Cycle and understanding how a human initiated act such as pollution, global warming, and over-fishing affects the coast, the atmosphere, and ultimately, the quality and security of human life in urbanized environment. CURI will influence the educational program. Courses will be developed and collaboration across disciplines will ensue.

The PI's request funding to develop BIOME, a Bio-Robotic Infrastructure for Oceanic Microbial Ecology. Coastal ecosystems are central to global biogeochemical cycles despite their relatively small size; therefore, biological oceanography has focused on understanding microbial bloom dynamics on continental shelves. Unfortunately, our concepts of how a diverse bacterial community transitions between seasons remain incomplete because of our inability to sample on the appropriate time and spaces scales to resolve the processes influencing the microbiota. In order to address this limitation, we are proposing a build a biological sampler compatible with the Slocum Glider. What is missing is a component capable of collecting and returning intact biomass to the laboratory for molecular ecology studies to delineate the mechanisms driving bacterial evolution in the sea. this project will provide a platform to define the metabolic and genomic properties and mechanisms responsible for microbial growth, adaptation, and survival in the oceanic environment. The BIOME research will address fundamental questions in marine ecology and elucidate the mechanisms supporting the diversity of microorganisms in the ocean.

Broader Impacts:

The potential broad impacts of this proposal are greater than average because the device being designed has potential to be deployed widely if it is successful and would lead to more accurate models of ocean microbial community structure and activity. The PIs propose to develop a K-12 lesson plan about bacteria in the Mid-Atlantic Bight with the help of an education outreach specialist associated with the Mid Atlantic Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence, and have included this aspect of the project in the budget. There is a plan for disseminating the lessons to K-12 teachers through a variety of on-line and summer teacher training programs, to the public through lectures at local library, and to kids through the Rutgers 4-H after school programs. The PIs also intend (though don't lay out any specific plan) to include underrepresented ethnic groups in summer research through the RISE @ Rutgers program.