System Was Monitoring Coastal Environments, Marine Ecosystems and Currents
The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.
The US National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea.
Scientists have used data from the system to understand how the ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how changes in ocean temperature such as marine heat waves might affect fisheries or signal bigger shifts in the climate, and coastal flooding along the East Coast.
The station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, a global conveyor belt of water that some scientists are concerned may be weakening as a result of climate warming. A collapse of the current could have severe weather effects.
The ocean observation system began operating in 2016 and was expected to continue for 25 years. Jim Edson, a marine meteorologist who led the Ocean Observatories Initiative, called it “the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems.” When it was first proposed, the science foundation said it was important to have a long-term presence at scientifically important sites in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Each observation station consists of several moorings that secure long arrays of devices connected to wires. The devices measure ocean currents as well as chemical and biological conditions from the water’s surface down thousands of feet.
The instruments were hardened to resist the pressure of the deep ocean, corrosive seawater as well as marine plants and animals that can foul electronics. Remotely controlled robotic vehicles and gliders around the moorings collect and transmit data to research laboratories.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, the network was coordinated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in collaboration with Rutgers University, the University of Washington and Oregon State University.
To read the full story as reported in the New York Times see the following link:
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