Archive for category: News

Dr. Jørgen Bendtsen, ClimateLab Denmark., Professor Katherine Richardson, Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen.

Deployment of the VMP-250 from the R/V Dana in the North Sea, July 2016. The instrument is deployed ~5 m from the free-drifting ship, and after it has been lowered to the surface the line is released and it sinks freely through the water column.

The ClimateLab and University of Copenhagen purchased a VMP-250 coastal turbulence profiler and Jørgen attended instrument training at Rockland Scientific in June 2016.  Shortly after, Jørgen used the instrument as part of a nutrient flux study in the North Sea.  The ClimateLab and U Copenhagen team collected turbulence data from the VMP-250 and analyzed the potential for vertical mixing, which can transport nutrients, such as nitrate, which support primary production throughout the column. The findings were published last month in the paper Turbulence measurements suggest high rates of new production over the shelf edge in the northeastern North Sea during the summer  in the Biogeosiences Journal.

The key finding of this research paper was based on measurements taken in the northeastern North Sea. During the stratified summer season a deep chlorophyll maximum was found at the bottom of the nutrient depleted surface layer (~20 m). Observations with the VMP-250 along transects across the shelf edge towards the deep northern North Sea (>500 m) showed enhanced vertical mixing at the bottom of the nutricline above the shelf edge. Diapycnal turbulent nitrate fluxes were estimated from turbulence measurements and nutrient samples and showed enhanced new production above the shelf edge area. Overall, this suggests that the shelf-edge zone may be the major nutrient supplier to the euphotic zone in this area during the period of summer stratification.

These findings will have impacts on fisheries, aquaculture, and ecological conservation efforts and policy.  Dr. Bendtsen and Professor Richardson’s success with the VMP-250 has resulted in some additional funding to add a fluorometer/turbidity sensor to their VMP-250 instrument.  This is good news for Rockland and their customer base as Jørgen is well positioned to perform novel science with high resolution measurements of chlorophyll-a and turbidity taken very close to the shear probes.

London, UK, March 13, 2018 – Rockland and Alseamar are proud to show the results of their recent partnership.  At the previous OI 2016, both companies agreed on a joint R&D program to develop a turbulence sensor payload for the Alseamar SeaExplorer glider.  The first customer conducted successful deployments with the sensor payload, the MicroRider-SE, on the SeaExplorer in June and winter of 2017. At OI 2018, a demonstration model of glider and sensor payload will be on display at the Alseamar stand.

In June 2017, a research team from the Atmosphere & Ocean Research Institute (AORI) of the University of Tokyo successfully deployed a SeaExplorer in the Kuroshio current, collecting microstructure turbulence data, amongst other parameters. The SeaExplorer was able to smoothly navigate in one of the strongest current on Earth, with surface velocities sometimes up to four knots, with a large sensor payload. In addition to the flight dynamics, the one litre buoyancy engine of the SeaExplorer proved helpful when facing strong density gradients.

AORI’s SeaExplorer is fitted with the MicroRider-SE payload (for turbulence), a Nortek Signature ADCP (for currents), a WetLabs Triplet (for Chlorophyll-a, Turbidity and CDOM), as well as a CT sensor and a Rinko optical DO sensor (from JFE Advantech, for temperature, salinity and oxygen).

Major innovations for the SeaExplorer MicroRider-SE turbulence package are the low footprint integration of the microstructure probes in the front nose cone of the glider and the addition of an EM current sensor (velocimeter) to directly measure the axial speed of the glider.

Data collected are now being processed by AORI team with ROCKLAND support, and are part of a wider study on turbulent mixing generated by the Kuroshio current.

Figure 1 : The AORI SeaExplorer’s path along the Kuroshio current
(red pins are waypoints the glider was asked to follow / white pins are actual glider surfacings)

Figure 2 : The MicroRider-SE (MR-SE) payload for SeaExplorer, a joint development between AORI, ALSEAMAR and Rockland Scientific

Figure 3 : The SeaExplorer from AORI

As part of the Oceans Sciences Meeting 2018, Portland OR, this town hall event will unveil recommendations and next steps towards improving the characterization of the LCS, based on findings from the Committee on Advancing Understanding of Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Dynamics. Rockland Scientific is proudly co-sponsoring this event held at the Portland Convention Center, Oregon Ball Room 201, February 14, 2018 18:00 – 20:00. For details see attached flyer.

LCEA MTS Town Hall and Panel

On Monday the W.M. Keck Foundation announced USD $1.2M of funding to build a Hadal Water Column Profiler (HWCP) that will permit new exploration and understanding of the ocean’s deepest regions.

This uniquely capable profiling instrument will, for the first time:

• enable high quality physical, chemical, and biological sampling of the water column from the sea surface to the seafloor at 11km (36,000 ft) depth;
• withstand hundreds of cycles in and out of hadal pressures; and
• provide observations needed to illuminate important and vexing problems, such as how the deep ocean trenches are ventilated.

This three-year project will be lead by the University of Hawaií Mānoa, involving a highly qualified team of scientists, engineers and technicians from the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology.  The UH Mānoa team includes Dr. Glenn Carter, a physical oceanographer who made the first turbulent mixing measurements in the ~5km deep Samoan Passage, the primary flow pathway of Antarctic Bottom Water into the North Pacific; Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, a deep-sea ecologist and a founding member of the Hadal Ecosystems Studies (HADES) program and chief scientist for a hadal cruise to the Mariana Trench; Dr. Bruce Howe, the lead investigator on the Aloha Cabled Observatory, the deepest such observatory in the world; and Dr. Chris Measures, a chemical oceanographer who was one of the authors of the international GEOTRACES Science Plan.

HWCP industry partners include Rockland Scientific Inc., who will provide a custom turbulence sensor payload, and Ron Allum Deepsea Services who will provide the flotation, pressure tolerant batteries and design consulting. Rockland has previously supplied UH Mānoa with a 6000m Deep Ocean Vertical Microstructure Profiler profiler and Ron Allum was lead engineer and co-designer of the Deepsea Challenger, which took James Cameron to the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench in 2012.

The complete UH Foundation news release can be found here

HWCP Concept Drawing