Daily Logs
Week 6

Tuesday, October 9, 2001
Wednesday, October 10, 2001
Thursday, October 11, 2001
Friday, October 12, 2001
Saturday, October 13, 2001

Date: Tuesday, October 9, 2001
Photos: Bruce Cowden, the Chief Bosun
Latitude: 1o S
Longitude: 92o W
Temperature: 84o F
Seas: Calm in port

Science Log: There is a flurry of activity getting ready for departure. The crew is very focused checking that everything (and I mean everything!) is strapped down tightly. Then the authorities come on board to check passports and do an inspection. If all is in order we will be on our way shortly.

Photos: Any job that requires moving things around on the deck is overseen by Bruce Cowden, the Chief Bosun. In the first photo you can see Bruce hoisting the gangway, and in the second he is leaning overboard to watch the lifting of the anchor.

Travel Log: We are now underway! The gangplank has been raised, the anchor (all 270 meters of it) is lifted and the ship is moving out to sea. Most everyone is standing on the decks outside taking their last photos of these fabulous islands. Goodbye Galapagos! Goodbye to Lonesome George (a huge turtle that is the last of his kind) and all the other gentle giants. Goodbye to all the beautiful herons, frigates, and blue-footed boobies! And finally, goodbye to all the friendly inhabitants of these islands that are working to preserve them for the future.

Keep in touch,
Jane

Science Log: Everyone was working in full swing today. Weather balloons being released, water samples being collected, data from every possible source was being analyzed. The big event of the day though, was coming upon the first buoy. A buoy is relatively small, about the size of a small monkey bar set - just big enough for one or two people to climb onto. It has a long rope with an anchor attached at the bottom so it is supposed to stay put. But many times the currents and winds are too strong and it drifts a bit, making it hard to find in the big ocean. Fortunately, it has a sensor on it that helps the ship locate it. This buoy was placed out here last year. It is full of sensors that store information like temperature and salinity (how much salt is in the water) and winds. Using that information, scientists can chart even the smallest changes over long periods of time. Unfortunately this buoy was damaged a while ago and stopped transmitting. Perhaps a ship ran into it or maybe a shark took a bite out it. Today 2 scientists went out in a small boat (see photos) and climbed aboard the buoy and repaired it. Lucky for them, the seas were very calm, but even so, it is very dangerous work. They found the buoy quite damaged probably from a collision with a ship. The buoy was fixed and is now transmitting again.

Travel Log: Repairing the buoy took about 2 hours. During that time some of the crew enjoyed fishing off the back of the boat. As Jennifer mentioned in her logs, the bottom of the buoy and the rope that leads down to the anchor act as a special habitat for sea life. Barnacles and mussels attach themselves to the rope and then small fish come to feed on them, The food chain grows quite large so that in a year's time many big fish, including sharks, can often be seen by a buoy. Today one of the crew caught a 25 pound mahi which was deliciously grilled up for dinner.

Today we also had our first emergency drills. Each person on board is responsible for knowing what to do, where to go, and what to bring for each of the three types of emergencies. The first is your basic fire drill. But since you can't get off the ship easily, you have to know where to go to be safe. The second one is the "abandon ship" drill. This one is tough because each person must get to her room, put on a life vest, and carry a large orange duffle bag with your "gumby" suit in it down to a lifeboat. A gumby suit is a big bulky rubbery suit that will keep you warm and dry if you have to go into the water. You put it on right over your clothes and it's really tough to do. I was told that it will be even be harder to do in the middle of a dark and cold night! The last drill is the "man overboard" alarm. What do you do if you were to see someone fall off the ship? Three things: keep your eye on him, throw something in the water that will float like a life ring, and yell for help. Safety is a big concern when you are on a ship.

Question of the Day: How does the ship get fresh water for its passengers?

Keep in touch,
Jane

Science Log: Clouds
Today I met with meteorologist Dr, Taneil Uttal from ETL (Environmental Technology Lab) in Boulder, Colorado. She is head of a group that has done cloud studies in the Arctic. On this trip one of the things Dr. Uttal wants to determine is how similar marine clouds are to Artic clouds. To do this she and her associate Duane Hazen use radiometers and radar which are all packed into a trailer. The whole trailer is on the deck of the Ron Brown. Think of the trailer as a big package of instruments. Duayne's job is to keep the machinery running. In the photo you can see the radar antennae on top of the trailer. It is there to measure the lectromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency.

Here is how Dr. Uttal explains what's going on:

What is a cloud?
________________

A cloud is gazillions of tiny water droplets or ice crystals floating
together up in the sky. Some clouds make rain and snow. Some clouds
do not. In EPIC we are looking at both kinds of clouds.

What is a Radiometer?
_____________________

Think of a pokemon which has a special power that no other pokemon
has. There are many things in the world around us that are just like
that. For instance tiny droplets of water floating in the air are
beaming certain energies that only water droplets have. If we know
what the water droplet energy is like (and we do!), we can measure it
and find out how much water there is in a cloud. A radiometer is a
special instrument that we have here on the Ron Brown for measuring the
special energy of a water droplet so we always know how much water is
in the clouds over the ship. The energy of a water droplet can be
named by how fast it is. A water droplet has three energies, 20 GHz,
32 GHz and 90 GHz. A GHz is 1,000,000,000 cycles per second.

What is a radar?
_________________

A radar is different from a radiometer because instead of looking for
natural energy from something like a water droplet, it beams out it's
own energy, bounces it off of things in the sky (like water droplets in
a cloud), and measures the reflected energy. By looking at the
reflected energy, the radar can tell you things about a cloud that are
different then what the radiometer tells you. It can tell you about
how high a cloud is, how big the droplets are, and how fast the droplets
are falling. The radar energy is 35 GHz.

What do you get when you look up with a radar and a radiometer?
_______________________________________________________________

When you put the data from a radar and radiometer together, you can
figure out even more things, like how many cloud droplets there are,
where the water is located in the cloud, and get an even better guess of how
big the droplets are.

What does all this information tell you?
________________________________________

Right now people do not know very much about how clouds reflect sunlight from the sun, reflect warmth that is coming up from the earth, and change things like the temperature on the surface where we live. These things will change depending all the cloud height, how much water it has, how big the droplets are, and how fast they are falling. In EPIC, we want to know which kinds of clouds might make the ocean warmer, and which might make the ocean colder. This can have a big effect on where fish and other ocean animals might want to live and what kind of weather happens over the ocean.

Dr. Uttal is a scientist on board but she is also a mother and wife back in Colorado. Taniel and her husband Rusty, have 2 children - Kalvin, 6th grader at Baseline Middle School and Miranda, a 4th grader at Flatirons Elementary School.

Travel Log: Today I spent time on "the bridge" of the ship. This is the area that controls all the functions of the ship. The captain and his officers are responsible for all that goes on, much like the principal of the school is in charge. The best view can be had from the bridge and there are video cameras that look out over all the decks. The highlight was seeing a pod of porpoises swimming nearby. So graceful! I'm going to keep my eye out for whales.

Question of the Day: What is the fastest creature living in the sea?

Keep in touch,
Jane

Date: Friday, October 12, 2001
Photos: ARGO float and Dr. Weller
Latitude: 7o S
Longitude: 95o W
Air Temp: 21.2 o C
Sea Temp: 21.1o C
Sea Wave: 3 -4 ft.
Swell Wave: 3 - 5 ft.
Visibility: 8 miles
Cloud cover: 8/8

Science Log: ARGO
An ARGO Float is a small (about 3 feet in length) black tubular shaped instrument that measures temperature and salinity in the water. It's interesting particularly because it is so simple. The middle part of the instrument, called a bladder, is made of a thick rubber material that can inflated like a balloon. It has a pump inside that inflates or deflates the bladder which changes its volume while keeping the mass the same. A deflated state has an increased density which makes the ARGO sink to a depth of 900 meters below the surface. There it drifts for 10 days collecting data. Then the bladder is inflated so the ARGO rises to the surface and transmits its data to a satellite. When the transmission is complete, it deflates again and begins the whole process anew. This will go on for four years! As part of an international project Dr. Weller, our Chief Scientist, and a group of scientists hope to have 3000 of these in the water all over the world collecting data. We will be deploying a total of 6 at the points marked on the photo. The one you see in the photo was deployed at 2.5 o S.

Travel Log: Pilot Whales - My first sighting of whales. So beautiful and graceful. Not good for picture taking though because they blend in so well with the ocean. The weather is fine with a high cloud cover and light winds and no rain.
The crew says this is the calmest water they've been in all year! Lucky me!

Question of the day: What would happen to an ordinary styrofoam cup at at depth of 900 m.?

Keep in touch,
Jane

Science Log: Energy from the Sun
The sun is the source of all energy on the Earth. The sun gives us this energy in the form of light and heat. Where does all that energy go? Why? How can it be measured? These are some of the questions many of the scientists on board are asking.

Toby Westberry and Olga Polyakov are scientists that have 2 instruments to help them understand how solar energy behaves in the ocean. The first is the SPMR which is a tool used to measure how much light penetrates the water. The more light = the more heat. You can see in the photo that it is a small black device attached to a long cord. Toby and Olga lower the SPMR over the side and let it sink to 300 meters. Then they reel it back in just like a fishing pole. It tells them the "color" (wavelength) of the light at different depths. They do this over and over again in different locations in the ocean. Why? We know that the ocean water is not the same temperature in all places on the planet. Can you think of why this might be?

Well Toby and Olga know that there are tiny living organisms in the ocean that play a role in how warm or cool the temperature is. They are called phytoplankton. It seems that the more phytoplankton there is near the surface of the water, the more heat is trapped there.

Here's an excellent explanation from Mrs. Richards of what's happening that might help you to understand the process:

Imagine a nice clear swimming pool. The sun's heat energy can penetrate all the way to the bottom of the pool because the water is so clear. Whatever heat energy hits the pool will be dispersed throughout the water somewhat evenly. Makes sense, right?

Now imagine that the pool has a layer of scum and algae at the top. Face it, you just haven't done a very good job at cleaning the pool, and your allowance just isn't big enough to make the job worthwhile. Now, the sun's heat energy can't pass all the way to the bottom of the pool because the scum is blocking the light. The very top of the pool water is going to capture almost all of the sun's heat energy, and the bottom layers of water will be darker and colder. Imagine how the temperature of the water will be affected by the amount of scum in the water.

Knowing how much phytoplankton is hanging around would certainly help understand how the sun's energy is being used. For this experiment they use a CTD. (Boy they sure use a lot of abbreviations for things!) This instrument is really big and needs a big machine called a winch to lift it in and out of the water. It has 12 tubes that fill up with water, each at a different depth. When the CTD is back on the ship, Toby and Olga fill labeled plastic bottles with the water. Then their work begins. First they run all the water samples through a filter to figure out how much phytoplankton was in the sample. Remember each tube on the CTD took in water at a different depth. So each bottle will tell a different story. They use this information to create a data graph which is used with other information to tell how the sun is heating the ocean.

Travel Log: Sea birds! I don't know how they do it or where they came from but all of a sudden 5 "boobies" showed up over the ship. What was amazing is that they hardly ever flap their wings, yet they fly as fast a the ship. The ship is moving forward at about 10 miles an hour and has big engines to push it. These birds just seem to glide along over us. Beautiful!

Question of the day: What is an updraft and what causes it?

Keep in touch,
Jane

Note for educators: Although Jennifer and Jane's reseearch cruise ended, the EPIC research continues. Please use this web site, Jennifer and Jane's lesson plans, daily logs, the videos, and the photos to educate your students about climate, El Niño, and scientific research in general.

Consider this web site, as well as the TAO web site, a resource for teaching your students.

Many organizations and countries are involved in funding the EPIC Experiment. Primary U. S. funding is provided by The National Science Foundation and The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

This website is maintained and frequently updated by
NOAA's Office of Global Programs
ogpwebmaster@noaa.gov.

Some of the material on this website may require one of the following plug-ins
if not already installed on your system: