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October 24,
2003
Highlights
- Jennifer Francis was invited to serve a 3-year term on the Science
Steering Committee for a multi-agency program called SEARCH (Study
of Environmental Arctic Change).
- Qizhong (George) Guo was invited by U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to give a training seminar on September 18th, 2003 at their
Edison facility, titled "Hydraulics and Hydrology in Stormwater
Management: Facilities Retrofitting, Flow-Based TMDL, and Transient
Pollutant Load." The seminar was attended by personnel from
USEPA, NJDEP, NJDOT, Rutgers, and consulting firms.
- The long-awaited dredging of the Tuckerton boat basin is scheduled
to begin on or about Nov. 6. Party details to follow. Order your
commemorative t-shirts today (orders to Rose Petrecca).
- Ken Able took the cover photograph of the August 2003 (Vol.
13, No. 4) issue of Ecological Applications, a publication of
The Ecological Society of America. Taken from a helicopter, it
shows an upstream oblique aerial view of Hog Islands, New Jersey
in the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve in
September 1998, and depicts the spread of Phragmites australis
(common reed), replacing the native brackish marsh vegetation
Spartina patens and S. alterniflora.
- Peter Rona was appointed to the Exhibition Advisory Board of
the Liberty Science Center for development of a major new permanent
exhibition, "Our Hudson Home," that will depict the
Hudson River system and it's human dimensions.
- The satellite group took delivery of their new X-Band Satellite
Data Acquisition System Friday, October 3rd! This new satellite
dish will allow them to track in real time some of the latest
ocean color satellites in the international constellation of research
satellites including NASA's MODIS and India's Oceansat satellites.
Ben Saunders and Mike Crowley of SeaSpace Corporation arrived
at IMCS for the week long installation. Thanks to the new X-Band
dish there will be new COOL satellite imagery in the months to
come! Thanks to the patience of the IMCS community during the
installation of the X-Band dish.
- MIREM 2003 -
The COOL glider group (Liz Creed, Chhaya Mudgal, Matt Oliver and
John Kerfoot) participated in the Mine Warfare Readiness &
Effectiveness Measuring (MIREM) exercise, which was conducted
from September 22 - 24, 2003. One of the fleet of four WRC autonomous
underwater gliding vehicles outfitted with a customized package
of optical instrumentation was flown in two areas designated by
the Commander of the Surface Warfare Development Group in which
dummy subsurface mine shapes were placed. The physical and optical
data gathered from these deployments will be used in post-exercise
prediction and performance models developed by the Navy in an
effort to increase the success of the Counter-Mine Warfare Commander
(COMINWARCOM) to detect and neutralize subsurface mine fields,
making coastal waters safer for military and civilian use.
The MIREM exercise was the first in a series of COOL glider collaborations
with the Office of Naval Research and COMINWARCOM to develop and
fine tune the glider technology for the purpose of counter mine
operations. The second (and much larger) exercise, the Joint Task
Force Exercise (JTFEX) will be held during the spring of 2004.
2 - 3 gliders will be flown concurrently during the full scale
battle exercise and real-time information will be transferred
back to shore, where it will be processed and handed over to the
Naval Fleet Commander for real-time decision making.
- Rich Lutz, Peter Rona, and Kyle Kingman hosted a preview of
the IMAX film, Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, held at the Liberty
Science Center on the evening of October 16th for about 150 New
Jersey high school students involved in school newspapers and
environmental study programs. The film was enthusiastically received
by the students, their teachers, and the parents present. Rich,
Peter and Kyle were deluged with their questions about the science
presented in the film and opportunities to study at Rutgers.
- The CODAR group started September off with a bang or one could
say with a clang as the mooring weight slid off the back deck
of the RV Connecticut to anchor the long-range CODAR transmit
buoy. It is a spar buoy 30 feet in length with a 30 feet transmit
antenna atop of it for a total length of 60 feet. It is located
at 39 degrees 29.144 minutes N and 72 degrees 43.6003 minutes
W.
- The CODAR group had a busy week on Cape Cod from September 15th
to 19th. They set up a long-range CODAR system at the southeast
lighthouse in conjunction with Dave Ullman at the University of
Rhode Island and Karl Schlenker from the University of Maine.
They then grabbed a ferry to Nantucket to complete the communications
installation at the Nantucket CODAR site. They finished the week
by performing a small test for University of Massachusetts at
Dartmouth on Friday.
Meetings Attended
- Stacy Hagan (RUMFS/Tuckerton) gave a presentation at the 17th
Biennial Conference Estuarine Research Reserve held in Seattle
Washington in mid-September. Her talk (co-authors K.W. Able and
S.A. Brown) was entitled "Impacts of invasive Phragmites
on salt marsh fish populations: movements and residency of Fundulus
spp." Ken Able gave an oral presentation at the same conference
entitled "Connectivity between coastal and estuarine habitats."
- Sybil Seitzinger and John Harrison attended the Estuarine Research
Federation Conference, "Estuaries On The Edge," on September
14-19th in Seattle, Washington.
- Paul Falkowski, Kay Bidle, and Zoe Finkel represented IMCS and
Rutgers at the AGU Chapman Conference on The Role of Diatom Production
and Si Flux and Burial in the Regulation of Global Cycles (22-26
September 2003, Paros, Greece). Paul and Kay gave invited talks
entitled "The Evolution of Marine Phytoplankton in the Phanaerozoic
Oceans: From Dinosaurs to Diatoms" and "Mechanistic
Controls on Silica Dissolution and the Coupling of Si and C Cycles
by the Marine Microbial Loop," respectively. Zoe presented
a poster entitled "Cope's Rule, Environmental Change and
the Evolution of Diatoms through the Cenozoic."
- Jim Ammerman attended the NSF Biocomplexity in the Environment
Awardees Meeting in Arlington, VA, Sept. 15-17. He presented a
poster entitled "In situ Measurement of Microbial Enzyme
Activities at Ocean Observatories" about his Biocomplexity
project.
- Scott Glenn presented a talk at the Rutgers University Symposium
on Homeland Security Research. His talk was entitled, "Development
of a Dual-Use Over-The-Horizon Radar Network for Monitoring Ocean
Currents and Ship Traffic in the Exclusive Economic Zone."
The symposium was presented by Rutgers University Homeland Security
Research Initiative (RUHSRI).
The abstract of the talk and poster is stated as: Advances in
ocean observing technology and numerical modeling are fueling
new Federal initiatives that are expected to double the annual
Federal investment in oceanography by the end of the decade. A
core component of the new initiatives is to establish a sustained
coastal ocean observation network for the U.S. Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ). A key technology for the envisioned national network
are shore-based High Frequency (HF) Radar remote sensing systems
capable of over-the-horizon mapping of surface currents. Rutgers
currently operates ten of these HF Radar systems covering the
region from Cape May to Cape Cod. The hourly surface current maps
are used by academics for scientific research and teaching, by
the Coast Guard for search and rescue, by the NOAA HazMat Response
Team for oil spills, and by the general public for recreation.
Rutgers attended the first meeting to design a similar network
for the entire United States at the Ocean.US office in Washington,
DC on September 11, 2003. Efforts to establish a national HF Radar
network are enhanced by its potential dual-use capabilities, the
foremost of which is surface vessel tracking for homeland defense.
While conventional microwave Radars offer excellent line-of-sight
coverage of vessels at short range, homeland defense initiatives
have identified over-the-horizon tracking of surface vessels as
a priority to extend the borders of our nation's harbors out to
the edge of the EEZ. In response, Rutgers University has formed
a team of academic/industry partners to develop and test surface
vessel detection and tracking algorithms within Rutgers' existing
HF Radar array deployed outside the tier 1 Port of New York and
New Jersey. Start up funding has been provided by the Office of
Naval Research and the DoD Counterdrug Technology Development
Office, and tests are being conducted in collaboration with the
U.S. Coast Guard. Initial results include the automated detection
and tracking of a large container vessel, an academic research
vessel, a mid-size Coast Guard cutter, and a small commercial
SeaTow vessel. The initial results are sufficiently promising
to lead the organizers of the national HF Radar network to anticipate
that funding for vessel tracking applications will quickly outpace
funding for oceanographic applications if continued development
is pursued.
- Members of the COOL Group went off to sunny San Diego for Oceans
2003 which coincided with the 100th anniversary of Scripps. Liz
Creed presented a paper entitled "Automated Control of a
Fleet of Slocum Gliders Within an Operational Coastal Observatory."
Josh Kohut presented on the behalf of Scott Glenn "NEOS:
the North East Ocean Observing System by: Scott Glenn & NEOS
Partners." Hugh Roarty presented "Recent Results from
a Nested Multi-Static HF Radar Network for the NorthEast Observing
System (NEOS)."
- Fred Grassle chaired the Census of Marine Life Steering Committee
in Washington, DC on October 24. He also presided over a press
conference and spoke at the "Ocean Life, the Known, the Unknown,
and Unknowable" Symposium sponsored by the Census of Marine
Life at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington.
New Grants
- Ken Able, along with Carolyn Currin (NOAA/NOS, Beaufort NC)
and Simon Thorrold (WHOI) just received a grant from US EPA's
Water Quality Cooperative Agreements on "Assessing effectiveness
of restoration of salt marsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora)
marshes by replacing the invasive common reed (Phragmites australis)."
- Oscar Schofield and Scott Glenn received a grant from the Department
of Defense-Office of Naval Research 2003-2004. "Developing
the Ability to Map In Situ Optical Properties in Coastal Waters
Using Slocum Coastal Gliders," ($113,000).
Publications
- Quigg, A., Z. V. Finkel, A.J. Irwin, Y. Rosenthal, T.Y. Ho,
J.R. Reinfelder, O. Schofield, F.M. Morel and P.G. Falkowski.
The evolutionary inheritance of elemental stoichiometry in marine
phytoplankton. Nature (425)291-294.
- Chen, Miller, Francis, Russell, and Aires: Observed and Modeled
Relationships among Arctic Climate Variables. Journal of Geophysical
Research, in press.
- Kirkpatrick, G. J., Orrico, C., Oliver, M. J., Moline, M. A.,
Schofield, O. 2003. Continuous real-time determination of hyperspectral
absorption of colored dissolved organic matter. Applied Optics
42:1-5.
- Johnson, D. M., Miller, J., Schofield, O. 2003. Dynamics and
optics of the Hudson River outflow plume. Journal of Geophysical
Research. 10.1029/2002JC001485. 1-9.
- Fan, C.-W. and J. R. Reinfelder (2003) Phenanthrene accumulation
kinetics in marine diatoms. Environ. Sci. Technol. 37:3405-3412.
Student News
- Jason Sylvan successfully defended his MS thesis entitled "Mapping
phosphorus limitation in the Mississippi River plume " on
Sept. 30. His committee members include Jim Ammerman (advisor),
Sybil Seitzinger, and Rob Sherrell.
Let's Welcome
- Madeline Gazzale has joined the staff at IMCS as Administrative
Assistant III for the U.S. Globec Office and the Jacques Cousteau
National Estuarine Research Reserve. She served as office manager
of the New Jersey Academy of Science, a non-profit science organization
for the past five years. Madeline holds a BA in communications
from Rowan University.
- Welcome to new Lab Tech, Rachel Sipler. Rachel will be working
in Sybil's group on Dissolved Organic Matter Dynamics and the
Global Nutrient Modeling project.
Congratulations
- Best wishes to Hilairy Hartnett, who has left for an Assistant
Professor position at Arizona State University. She has a joint
appointment with the Department of Geological Sciences and the
Chemistry & Biochemistry Department. Her new email address
is h.hartnett@asu.edu.
- Congratulations to Rich Lutz and Peter Rona on the successful
East Coast premiere of the film Volcanoes of the Deep Sea at the
Liberty Science Center, October 23, 2003. Volcanoes of the Deep
Sea was produced by The Stephen Low Company and Rutgers University,
with major funding by the National Science Foundation. The film
will be shown at an additional event, sponsored by Cook College,
at the Liberty Science Center on November 11, 2003. Please contact
Linda at x242 for additional information.
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