Seascape Projects

The two-masted schooner was sailing downeast, five miles off Great Wass Island, when its crew hauled a four-foot frame with a long trailing net up out of the water and onto the deck. Despite nearly an hour under tow, the net yielded a mere tablespoon of living matter. It was August 1912, and oceanographer Dr. Henry Bigelow had been towing nets all night, and for many days prior, to take stock of the sea life in the Gulf of Maine. Day after day, each tow had brought with it a rich abundance of animals. But here, at what he labeled Station 33, he was surprised to find only tiny Staurostoma--a whitecross jellyfish.

If you see any jellyfish, you can report on our reporting page:

or email me at jellyfish@bigelow.org

I'll have some write-ups soon in the Working Waterfront and Maine Boats, Homes, & Harbors. Stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, here is a map comparing the sightings of whitecross jellyfish from last summer (yellow dots) to a swath of ocean (shaded area) where Dr. Henry Bigelow was shocked by high numbers of whitecross jellyfish in the summer of 1912:

The overlap is noteworthy. At the time, Dr. Bigelow was as surprised on seeing them as we are today, writing:

 "This was quite the contrary to what we expected, as the northeastern corner of the Gulf and the Bay of Fundy have always been credited with a rich pelagic life...our nets did not yield a single young fish along this whole stretch of coast." 

Enjoy the summer. More soon.

- Nick Recørd, signing off

Meteorologists can forecast weather remarkably well out to about a week. Climate scientists can forecast climate out to 50 or 100 years. There's a tantalizing gap between those two time scales--the monthly to yearly forecasting. Why can't we forecast something like heat waves a couple of months in advance?

The answer to this question is complicated, involving intimate ties between space and time, but in breaking news...actually we can. Yes, it turns out, we can forecast heat waves two months out. Well, at least, we can forecast the likelihood of a particular heat wave based on a specific ocean temperature pattern. It's a special case. Here's the summary:

The challenge with forecasting at this time scale is that we don't have general rules or equations to follow, like we do with short-term weather and long-term climate forecasting. We have to work on a case-by-case basis. In a way, everything is a special case. So we have to look for cues. For the specific heat wave pattern in the above article, scientists have found the right collection of cues that seem to be consistent. The GMRI lobster forecast is another good example: April water temperatures turn out to be an excellent cue for where lobsters will be in the summer. So there we have a useful forecast a few months in advance.

Meanwhile, other mid-range forecasts are still tricky, and scientists sometimes disagree. Take this recent article in the Portland Press Herald:

One scientist--the highly acclaimed Dr. Pershing of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute--says that "We're pretty much locked in now to 2012-like conditions." If you think back to 2012, that was the year we had an ocean heat wave 3 degrees above normal that lasted 18 months (continuing into 2013) and covered the northwest North Atlantic. On the other hand, further down in the article, the more obscure Dr. Record says, "It's more likely at this point that we'd have a warm summer and a heat wave than in a typical year, but it isn't guaranteed." 

When scientists disagree like this, you would think we would settle it with a math-off or a phylogeny bee. Typically, though, it's a wager over beer. In this case, Dr. Pershing has wagered a beer that July 2016 will be in the top two warmest July's since 1982. Naturally I have accepted the wager. Hopefully we'll have time to give some odds as the month approaches so that you can look on as I build toward a frenzy of excitement, triumph, and beer consumption, or whither in a spiral of humiliation and beer consumption.

For reference, this figure shows the surface water temperature through the end of March at a mid-coast buoy. The blue line shows the average condition, and the shaded area is the historical range. It's tracking quite warm, but it's a long way to July.

 - Nick Recørd, signing off

I just arrived home from another great Ocean Sciences meeting (#OSM16). The plenary speakers were impressive and inspiring, and I've come away with lots of new ideas. One of the slides that caught the attention of my inner nerd was this one, in a talk by Carl Wunsch (thanks to @TOSOceanography for the image):

The slide has a quote by oceanography legend Walter Munk expressing his concern about the rise of computers in ocean science at the expense of field work. 

"But Nick," my inner nerd said, "All you do is computer experiments. You never go to sea anymore." It's true, inner nerd. I started my career much in the spirit of Dr. Munk's quote--clambering at every chance to go to sea, working day and night aboard boats, and shunning my office. Yet as time went on, I spent less and less time at sea, and more time at a computer. This is clear in this figure I put together showing days at sea through the end of my Ph.D. program (the numbers since 2012 are all in the single digits). In a way, I'm a poster child for Dr. Munk's concerns.

"If I may respond," my inner nerd ventured, "what Dr. Munk sees as a concern is actually part of a revolution, not just in science, but in every part of our lives." 

Interesting. Please continue, inner nerd.

"I'm talking about the Compute Revolution. You don't need to look far to see how computation has revolutionized almost every field and reinvented the world we live in, from medicine to politics to literature. As far as the ocean goes, it's enormous and complex, and we're reading in immense amounts of data every second. Without computational experts--people who understand mathematics, code, and big data (nerds like you, Nick)--our science will fall behind. If we really want to understand the ocean, we need to compute."

Bold point, inner nerd, but what about Dr. Munk's argument about losing our seagoing edge?

"If we're losing our edge at sea, then yes, we should work on getting it back. But not at the expense of our computational edge. And besides, think about how much more information we have on the ocean now that we use floats, gliders, buoys, and satellites. It has been like turning on a light in a dark room. We are good at going to sea--we just do it differently, and in a way that requires lots of computing."

Wow, inner nerd. When did you get so preachy?

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with enjoying writing code. It can be interesting, valuable, and even beautiful. And by the way, it's where your best talents are. You can haul CTDs if you want, but you'll make more of a contribution by tapping into your strengths."

I reflected on my inner nerd's comments as I sipped my fifth cup of coffee. I do enjoy going to sea, and it will hopefully remain a part of my work, however it diminishes. Yet Nerdy is right--computational science is what I do best, and it's rewarding. For some people, their strength is harpooning whales with satellite tags and not puking in 10 meter seas. But for those of us who find our home within the Compute Revolution, we shouldn't feel guilty about not going to sea. We have an important contribution too.

Nick Record, signing off

This is part 1 of an infinity-part series on microbial oceanography.

It's the 21st century. The year 2000 has come and gone, and we're barreling forward past the "early aughts" into the middle of the century. According to sci-fi lore, by now we should have hoverboards, a cure for the common cold, and/or hyper-intelligent computers orbiting Jupiter's moons. We have already achieved some of those foreseen technologies (e.g. videoconferencing), and we have come up with some unforeseen technologies too (e.g. the Furby). Despite our technological advances, humanity confronts great challenges this century, from water shortages to transnational crime. Meanwhile, there is one strange fact that sci-fi writers did not foresee: fighting on the front lines against the threats to humankind is the intrepid Microbial Oceanographer.

"What a sec... the intrepid who?"

Okay, so maybe "microbial oceanographer" isn't a household term. Maybe there aren't hordes of ten-year-olds aspiring to grow up to be microbial oceanographers. Maybe, as is often the case, nobody has any idea what I'm talking about. To clarify, a microbial oceanographer studies and maps the microbes (microscopic life) in the ocean (big salty body of water that covers Earth). And from epidemics to climate change, the knowledge uncovered by studying marine microbes is critical for confronting humankind's impending threats.

Intrigued? Stay tuned for part 2 of my infinity-part series, Microbial Oceanography will Save the World.

And here, for no special reason, is a photo of a ctenophore.

-Nick Record, signing off

It looks like Thalia democratica. The bloom was so dense you could see it off the bow for miles and miles.

In October, a group from the New England Aquarium reported huge salp blooms in the Bay of Fundy:

And around the same time I got this email:

We have a salp model up and running at Bigelow now, and I hope to set this in forecasting mode for the bloom next fall (which is when our Maine salps bloom).

Nick Record, signing off