Liquid Robotics / Newsletter / July 2012

Making Waves

BREAKING NEWS

PacX Wave Glider Papa Mau Crosses the Equator

Papa Mau crossed the Equator on July 17, 2012 at 07:34:44 PDT, recording another achievement in the PacX record books. Following Papa Mau is Benjamin who is approximately 600 miles away from the Equator. He's taking his time and enjoying the high seas. For those keeping track, Papa Mau has another 4727 nautical miles left until he reaches Australia.

Follow Ben and Papa Mau on their journey to Australia via Fiji on the PacX site and the PacX blog.

PacX Abstract Due Date Extended to September 17, 2012

As a result of worldwide requests, the PacX Challenge abstract deadline has been officially extended to September 17, 2012. This is the final extension and all other competition requirements remain the same. For those who have submitted your abstracts, we thank you. If you wish to update your abstract you may do so prior to the new deadline.

Click here for more information on the PacX Challenge.

From the Ocean's Surface—Measuring Hurricane Intensity

Class 1, Class 3 or Class 5 hurricanes. The difference in the magnitude of loss of human life and property damage between a class 1 and a class 5, “Katrina like”, hurricane is immense. (View the Los Angeles Times’ hurricane intensity animation for an excellent demonstration of the effects of increased hurricane intensities.)

Until now, it has been difficult to accurately measure and predict the hurricane intensities. Why? Hurricane measurement capabilities have been dependent on satellites (limited vision below the clouds) or planes flying into the eye of a hurricane. Ocean surface or in situ measurement capabilities are limited due to the inherent safety risks to ships and personnel. NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami is changing this. Beginning this month, they will launch two Wave Gliders into hurricane prone geographies south of Miami to measure hurricane intensity from the ocean’s surface. The Wave Gliders will be equipped with standard weather stations, wave sensors, and a thermistor chain to measure the water temperature at 7 stations from the surface down to 7 meters depth. The aim of the demonstration is to incorporate this air/sea interface data directly into ocean and atmospheric prediction models to improve hurricane intensity forecasting. The Wave Gliders are ready for this challenge as they have already weathered hurricane force winds and 26-foot waves during the Pacific Crossing (PacX) (source: PacX data).

Dr. Alan Leonardi, deputy director of NOAA's AMOL, notes “By observing hurricanes from the surface, the unmanned vessel will be able to record how water heat fuels a storm and how a storm meshes with the atmosphere – low-level interactions that high-flying hurricane hunter aircraft are unable to capture.”…"The water vehicles can gather data in a storm that can't be gathered safely in any other way," said Dr. Leonardi. “In the case of the Wave Gliders, an operator at the Liquid Robotics command center will direct the boats to a hurricane-prone area, using GPS coordinates. The Wave Glider can then remain in the water for months.” (source: Sun Sentinel (6/17/12).

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PacX Challenge

Events

AUVSI's Unmanned Systems
North America 2012

Las Vegas, NV
August 6 - 9, 2012

Oceans '12 MTS/IEE

Hampton Roads, VA
October 14 - 19, 2012

Meteorological Technology
World Expo

Brussels, Belgium
October 16 - 18, 2012

Partner News

Papa Mau and Benjamin, two of the PacX Wave Gliders equipped with the Turner Designs C3 Submersible Fluorometer, found a Chlorophyll bloom in the middle of the Pacific.

Turner Designs, located in Sunnyvale, CA, has 40 years of experience in Fluorometer design and manufacture. Fluorometers measure fluorescent tracers, algal pigments, and other naturally occurring fluorescent compounds. Turner Designs sensors are a reliable and high quality product, while also being simple to set up and easy to use.

Learn more about the bloom on the PacX blog.

By the Numbers

Number of job openings at Liquid Robotics.

The Search for Smolt

The Ocean Tracking Network, Dalhousie University

On June 19, 2012, the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN), a marine research cooperative based at Dalhousie University, launched a Wave Glider in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to track fish. The core funding for the OTN is provided by the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, with additional contributions from numerous partners.

Salmon smelt and kelts were tagged in early 2012 from various rivers along the New Brunswick and Quebec coast, in an effort to study Atlantic salmon migration patterns. Very little is known about the migration pattern of these Atlantic Salmon and these populations are dangerously unstable. The Wave Glider is equipped with a sensitive acoustic receiver from VEMCO that detects the tagged fish when within a range of about 800m.

The challenge is not only to detect the “ping” from the salmon tag, but also to track the salmon. The Wave Gliders have already met with some success. “We’re happy to declare victory now because we’ve detected salmon on [the Wave Glider]”, according to Dr. Whoriskey, executive director for the Ocean Tracking Network. “The glider picked up one salmon’s tag in the middle of the gulf between Newfoundland and Quebec.”

The hope for this study is to increase knowledge about migration patterns to assist policymakers in better managing salmon fisheries.

Read the New York Times article | Follow the Search for Smolt

100th and 101st Production Wave Gliders Named

Alex and Malia

Dr. Edward Lu has been to Space and back. Three times. Now in his current role as Chief of Innovative Applications at Liquid Robotics, he is focused on helping the world explore and measure our oceans. His vision: fleets of Wave Gliders instrumenting the world’s oceans, collecting valuable data and enabling new insights for scientific discoveries. The first Wave Gliders assigned to his project are indeed notable in their own right as they were Liquid Robotics’ 100th and 101st production vehicles.

As the customer of the 100th production Wave Glider he faced a task perhaps even more challenging than any of his space missions. He needed to pick a name and custom paint scheme for the 100th Wave Glider. But Ed and his wife have two children. One Wave Glider. Two children. True to his reputation for making creative decisions under extreme pressure, he came up with a brilliant solution: Name and paint two Wave Gliders!

And so it is that the 100th and 101st production Wave Gliders coming out of our Sunnyvale facility are named Alex and Malia.

This month Ed will launch Alex and Malia (the Wave Gliders) into waters off the Florida coast to assist in hurricane measurement and prediction. The data gathered by Alex and Malia will be shared with NOAA's AMOL, compared to their current modeling system, and ultimately used in generating their hurricane models. With the ability to accurately monitor and measure weather around the globe—in real time, Wave Gliders could help save lives and minimize the economic impact of natural disasters. A fitting tribute to his two young children, indeed!

PacX Challenge Update

300 Nautical Miles of Phytoplankton

On June 20th and June 26th Papa Mau and Benjamin encountered an area of increased chlorophyll-A concentration near the equator indicative of a bloom of phytoplankton (microscopic ocean plants that form the base of the oceanic food chain) in the epipelagic. Since the initial encounter, both Wave Gliders have traveled through more than 300 miles of high-density phytoplankton waters, showing this bloom to be extensive (image above shows the extent of this particular bloom).

Collecting information on these blooms in situ has been difficult owing to their remote nature. Until now, they have been predominantly tracked by satellite! Boots-on-the-ground research into this phenomenon is important, as these equatorial phytoplankton blooms sequester a large amount of the carbon polluted by humans, and serve as a food source in one way or another for all of the species targeted by the international fishing industry.

Learn more about the bloom on the PacX blog.