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Halo Below

November 8, 2014

A fog bow, caused by light refracted through small water droplets in fog, arcs below the Air-Sea Interaction Tower in Martha’s Vineyard Sound. The tower, a part of the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory, enables scientists to study coastal atmospheric and oceanic processes. In the spring of 2013, engineers aboard the R/V Mytilus recovered an instrument that measures and counts miniscule phytoplankton as they pass through a focused laser beam in the water. Scientists have been observing and collecting data on the exchange of carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere, ozone pollution, tides, waves, and currents from this site since 2002.(Photo by Sean Whelan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)