Research Top Images

Something surprising is happening in the Chukchi Sea north of Alaska. In 2011 a team of scientists aboard the Coast Guard icebreaker Healy discovered a massive springtime plankton bloom--one of the largest ever observed in the world's ocean. But what was really startling is that the bloom occurred beneath one meter of ice, in conditions previously thought to be unconducive to plankton growth. In 2014, scientists returned to the region to study the phenomenon more closely and to better understand how rapidly changing conditions in the region might affect the delicately balanced ecosystem of the Arctic Ocean. (Photo by Amanda Kowalski, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

WHOI assistant scientist Amanda Spivak recently designed a new open-air Mesocosm Lab that can replicate various natural marine ecosystems, from shallow pelagic to benthic habitats. This permits her to study delicate animal and plant communities in a way that is more similar to their natural environment than an indoor lab and more controlled than the field. Filtered seawater from Martha’s Vineyard Sound passes through 1,500 feet of pipeline to tanks that can simulate waves, rising tides, or coastal currents. The system also allows scientists to collect data in real time to better understand how natural ecosytems function over a range of timescales.  (Photo by Daniel Cojanu, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

Researchers George Tupper and Ruth Curry pull in the High Resolution Profiler (HRP) after a mission in the western North Atlantic in 2011. When the HRP is put into the ocean, it measures ocean temperature, salinity, and flow speeds at tiny (microscale) intervals as it descends more than three miles to the ocean floor. Then it jettisons ballast weights and rapidly returns to the surface with its cargo of data. Curry leads a project using the HRP and other instruments to determine how cold, dense waters from the Antarctic circulate and mix over rough seafloor topography near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. (Photo by Carolina Nobre, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

WHOI researcher Joe Pedlosky, who studies the motion of the ocean. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)