2022
OCIA Acceleration Awards (up to $300k each)
Sea-level rise and coastal risk reduction: Restoration of coral reefs to enhance coastal protection
Principal Investigators:
Konrad Hughen and Helen Fredricks (Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry)
The problem:
Coral reefs provide substantial protection for coastal areas endangered by wave damage and flooding, but reefs are increasingly threatened by environmental changes and are observed to be in decline around the world. Efforts to repopulate dead reefs with juvenile coral recruits benefit from selecting coral colonies known to be resistant to environmental stress. However, new techniques are needed to rapidly and efficiently screen for sensitive versus resistant corals.
The solution:
This proposed research will improve efforts to repopulate damaged coral reefs and enhance protection of coastal areas from rising sea level. We will analyze the lipidomes (the range and type of lipids in cells) of corals that have been exposed to various stressors and are known to be either resistant or susceptible to stress in order to develop new tools for identifying strong candidates for reef recruitment. These proposed efforts will greatly increase efficiency in screening coral recruits for repopulating damaged reefs and maintaining healthy, physically robust reef ecosystems. If successful, the coral lipid stress biomarkers obtained will be transformative and provide powerful and widely applicable tools for proposals to NSF and NOAA for reef restoration projects that help improve coastal protection for communities globally.
OCIA Incubation Awards (up to $100k each)
A low-cost ultrasonic sensor for monitoring coastal flooding and sea level
Principal Investigators:
Sarah B. Das (Geology and Geophysics) and Christopher G. Piecuch, (Physical Oceanography)
The problem:
Rates of sea-level rise have accelerated in the past 60 years. Coastal communities in the United States are experiencing coastal flooding more often than they did in the past, with impacts on transportation, property, and public health and safety. Towns and cities are investing heavily in coastal resiliency and adaptation to climate change and sea-level rise. However, only limited coastal water-level observations exist for ground-truthing the models that support these planning and preparedness decisions. This raises the question whether coastal communities have the real-world data they need to plan and prepare.
The solution:
We envision a future in which coastal towns and cities are equipped with networks of coastal water sensors that provide data to inform policy and response; that validate coastal flood risk models; and that advance understanding of coastal flooding and its relation to storm surge, tides, and mean sea-level rise. Seed funding from an OCIA incubation award will support the development of the prototype sensor technology and deployment near existing NOAA tide gauges at Nantucket and Fall River. Lessons learned will serve as a springboard for the future development of networks of sensors that will be robust, low cost, and situated in public spaces to enhance visibility. This will lead to more equitable solutions and catalyze collaborations between scientists, engineers, marine operations, and community stakeholders.
Examining salt marsh resilience to accelerated rates of sea-level rise: the early Holocene as an analog
Principal Investigator:
Jeff Donnelly (Geology and Geophysics)
The problem:
Salt marshes are thought to be threatened by ever-increasing rates of sea-level rise (SLR). In Southeast Massachusetts the rate of SLR has tripled since pre-industrial times and is forecast to triple again by 2100 CE. Rates of SLR of the magnitude forecast have not been experienced since 7000 to 10,000 years ago (the early Holocene). Many researchers have predicted widespread marsh loss is likely over the coming decades as marshes fail to keep up with SLR. Controversially, recent modeling studies have indicated that salt marshes may be able to accrete vertically at much higher than modern rates of SLR, allowing them to keep up with projected increases in SLR.
The solution:
We plan to initiate a high-risk study aimed at determining if large-scale salt marshes existed in the early Holocene as a means of testing the hypothesis that these systems are capable of accreting vertically at rates sufficient to keep up with high rates of SLR (i.e., >5 mm/year). Recent high-resolution geophysical mapping of Buzzards Bay supports identification of coastal geometries favorable for marsh development in the early Holocene. In addition, sub-bottom sonar data provides evidence of potential salt-marsh sequences preserved in these ancient embayments. We will collect sediment cores from these targets and map salt marsh sequences, should they exist, examine the community structure and sediment characteristics, and determine the rate of ancient marsh accretion. If successful, this novel research has the potential to attract additional support from both federal agencies and foundations.
A pressure sensor capable of measuring sea-level rise
Principal Investigators:
Jason A. Kapit and Anna P. M. Michel (Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering); Raymond W. Schmitt (Physical Oceanography)
The problem:
Within decades, rising seas could become one of the greatest socio-economic challenges the world faces. Yet, it is still difficult for scientists to quantify the magnitude of the threat at both regional and global scales. This difficulty stems from the large uncertainty in satellite altimetry and gravimetric data used to measure sea level from space, as well as inadequate performance of in-situ measurement technologies. As a result, the uncertainty in individual sea level measurements is typically on the order of centimeters, while the current rate of sea-level rise is ~3 mm per year. It can take decades for regional or global sea level trends to emerge, but waiting this long to make policy changes or to reverse course is simply not an option.
The solution:
We propose to begin development of a new pressure-sensing instrument that will help address these challenges. By utilizing highly precise and stable optical technologies, this sensor would have the ability to detect sub-millimeter sea level changes over both short and long timescales. Such a measurement has recently been the focus of increasing interest, as it would add a precise measurement to the existing body of sea level data and thus substantially reduce uncertainty in measuring and predicting future sea levels.
Incubating a remote sensing solution for coastal risk reduction: Retooling the high-frequency radar into a dynamic coastal sensing mesh
Principal Investigator:
Anthony Kirincich (Physical Oceanography)
The problem:
Human use and stewardship of the coastal ocean is intimately linked to our ability to measure and predict changes on time scales as varied as hours and decades. Our response and mitigation of the coastal risks stemming from pounding waves, erosion, and flooding is as critical as our adaptations to annual and longer-term changes in salt marshes, coastal barriers, and circulation that impact the coastal ocean’s carbon cycle. Reducing these coastal risks requires more sensors that are more adaptable and more densely deployed within the coastal zone. Land-based high frequency radars (HFRs) have great potential to increase our situational awareness of a wide range of ocean processes on all time scales, but suffer from high platform cost, limited product availability, and low network reliability.
The solution:
The long-term goal of this project is to enable dense, distributed networks of single- or multi-channel radio systems capable of making a wide range of critically needed coastal ocean observations, from high-resolution estimates of winds and waves, to storm surge and tsunami sensing, to improved estimates of the surface currents that HFRs have traditionally measured. These products will help society improve protection of coastal zone and reduce risk within this rapidly changing environment, provided we can rapidly increase the scale at which we deploy HFRs. This incubation award will develop and test a proof-of-concept set of equipment and associated software that reduces the installed footprint of HFRs while maximizing its scalability, thereby enabling a new class of coastal processes to be studied.
Sentinels of ice-ocean exchange: Development of a reusable iceberg science platform
Principal Investigators:
Catherine Walker and Derek Buffitt (Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering)
The problem:
Icebergs are fascinating to a broad audience, but their scientific value is often overlooked. This value is at least twofold: A better understanding of iceberg evolution and dynamics from both the pale- and future-climate perspectives offers the potential to characterize global climate impacts of changing ice cover, and they can be used to probe aspects of the current state of ice-ocean, polar coastal, and climate systems that are often difficult to study. In this way, icebergs are essentially self-contained, in-situ climate laboratories, but they remain grossly under-explored.
The solution:
We propose to develop a novel, in-situ iceberg monitoring platform (tentatively, the IMP) that will enable long-term monitoring of icebergs as they calve and drift out to sea. Such a system will have two main benefits: It would enable first-of-its-kind iceberg and ice-ocean exchange science, and it would form the basis for a a state-of-the art system that will become an operational asset for the institution. The proposed development work would take place in WHOI’s Autonomous Vehicles and Sensor Technologies (AVAST) facility, where we would use existing resources to accelerate the fabrication and testing phases of the concept. In addition, use of AVAST will allow for better documentation and archiving of the design, establishing WHOI as the homebase for this new capability and its iterations going forward.
2021
OCIA Incubation Awards (up to $100k each)
Develop and deploy a new generation of low-cost carbon and pH sensors to enable cost-effective fishery- and community-based carbon observing networks
Principal Investigators:
Zhaohui Aleck Wang and Jennie Rheuban (Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry), Glen Gawarkiewicz (Physical Oceanography)
Senior Engineer:
Fritz Sonnichsen (Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering)
The problem:
The coastal ocean plays a key role in the global carbon cycle and, hence, the planetary climate system by taking up disproportionate amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide relative to other marine ecosystems and storing it in sediments and coastal vegetation and by exporting dissolved organic and inorganic carbon (DOC and DIC) into deeper waters. But coastal waters and near-shore ecosystems are undergoing significant changes worldwide as a result of human activity that may reduce the ocean’s ability to mitigate climate change or to adapt to predicted future changes. Understanding these changes as a step towards reducing negative human impacts is hampered by a lack of robust, high-quality sensors capable of making meaningful measurements over extended periods of time in an environment as dynamic as the coastal ocean. In addition, deploying large numbers of sensors is an expensive and time-consuming activity.
The solution:
This group aims to develop a prototype of a low-cost, easy-to-produce sensor capable of making high-frequency measurements of such variables as dissolved carbon dioxide (pCO2), pH, and dissolved oxygen (DO) to close this technology gap. They will also work to leverage WHOI’s existing relationships with marine-focused communities and commercial sectors, beginning with the Shelf Research Fleet organized in part by co-PI Gawarkiewicz, to deploy instruments on fishing vessels and other ships of opportunity working in coastal waters of New England and beyond. In addition to forming the foundation of a wirelessly connected, open-access coastal carbon network, it will provide fishers with environmental data to help them operate more efficiently and sustainably. The project will also help place WHOI at the forefront of community-wide efforts to democratize ocean observations and to make data and data collection more accessible by a more diverse group of organizations and individuals.
Accelerate exploration and understanding of carbon’s path through the ocean’s twilight zone: A Continuous Reconnaissance In-situ Twilight zone Tiny Respirometer (CRITTR)
Principal Investigators:
Matthew Long and Benjamin Van Mooy (Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry)
The problem:
Biological activity in the ocean’s mesopelagic, or twilight zone, plays an important role in controlling the transport of heat-trapping carbon from the atmosphere and surface waters into the deeper ocean. The depth (roughly 200 to 1000 meters below the surface) and extent (about two-thirds of Earth’s surface), as well as the complexity and patchiness of biological processes spread across such a large volume of the ocean, have contributed to a lack of detailed understanding and long-term measurements of carbon transport and storage in the region. This has hindered scientists’ ability to accurately model this critical part of Earth’s climate system.
The solution:
To close these gaps in resolution and accuracy of measurements in the ocean’s mesopelagic region, this project will build on the PIs’ experience with in-situ incubators to develop a low-cost, low-power CRITTR that will make direct measurements of biological uptake of carbon in the twilight zone. These next-generation instruments will be designed to incorporate commercially available components and to operate on existing moorings, gliders, floats, and other autonomous platforms. Eventual mass production CRITTRs will create a widely distributed fleet capable of making ocean carbon flux measurements distributed over time and throughout the ocean’s volume without the need for complex, costly ship-based expeditions. Ultimately, this data will greatly expand understanding of ocean carbon cycling and transform efforts to predict the future of Earth’s climate system.
A zero-power-return buoyancy engine for long-term ocean observations
Principal Investigators:
Paul Fucile and Robert Todd (Physical Oceanography)
The problem:
Understanding the global carbon cycle depends on long-term, global-scale observations of biogeochemical processes from the surface to the deep ocean that govern the movement of carbon around the globe. This is a task well-suited to an autonomous profiler such as the fleet of more than 3,000 Argo floats in operation at any given time, driven by variable-ballast engines. But even these workhorses of modern oceanography are limited by the battery power they carry, which often constricts their profiling frequency to once every ten days—a period that can miss critical phenomena such as the spring phytoplankton bloom. In addition, existing variable-ballast systems operate in a manner such that a loss of power at depth often results in a loss of the vehicle as it is unable pump against the pressure of the ocean to return to the surface.
The solution:
BEAM (Biology, Electronics, Aesthetics, and Mechanics) is a class of robotics that typically incorporates analog elements to enable unusually simple designs that are robust, efficient, and that facilitate the robot's response to its working environment. This engineer-scientist team with long experience designing and operating low-power autonomous gliders aims to develop a new variable-ballast engine based on BEAM principals that will address some operational limits of existing designs. A primary tenant of BEAM designs is the ability to supplement power supply demands by way of environmental energy harvesting. This new platform will support wave or solar energy intake while the robot is at the surface to enable a degree of “self-healing” that will allow extending mission life cycles. In addition, a key feature of this design will be a near-zero-power return capability in which a near- or total loss of the primary power source will enable the instrument to ascend to the surface.
OCIA Acceleration Awards (up to $300k each)
Revealing the impacts of oceanic iron on biological productivity and atmospheric carbon dioxide removal with stable isotopes
Principal Investigators:
Tristan J. Horner and Mak. A. Saito (Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry)
The problem:
Marine phytoplankton spread across wide areas of surface waters naturally convert large amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide into organic carbon and oxygen via photosynthesis, but phytoplankton growth in many parts of the ocean is limited by the availability of the micronutrient iron. As a result, ocean iron fertilization has been discussed as a potential method of enhancing atmospheric carbon dioxide removal. Despite significant research on this topic in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, previous experiments on the feasibility of the idea identified a number of uncertainties that prevent accurate estimates of carbon removal in response to iron availability. Specifically, it proved challenging to account for modifications to iron quotas by phytoplankton physiology, to predict limitations placed by other nutrients, and to quantify new biomass production in response to iron.
The solution:
To better measure the response of phytoplankton to iron, this team proposes an innovative solution employing stable isotopes of iron and to leverage an upcoming research expedition to the eastern Tropical Pacific in 2022. Specifically, the PIs intend to conduct controlled, enclosed shipboard laboratory incubation experiments using iron-57 as a marker to trace the incorporation of iron within phytoplankton communities. Because much of the iron in these experiments will come from the marker isotope, it will be possible to attribute and track resultant growth directly based on the iron isotope ratio in the resulting biomass. This will provide an important step toward a quantitative accounting of iron’s influence on biogeochemical processes by focusing on the fate of iron within complex marine systems.
Direct measurement of air-sea carbon dioxide exchange and whitecap activity over the coastal and open ocean
Principal Investigators:
James Edson and Seth Zippel (Applied Ocean Physics & Engineering)
The problem:
The exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and ocean surface is an essential, but under-appreciated, component of the carbon cycle, one that must be better understood as a first step towards viable atmospheric carbon dioxide removal strategies and a “net zero” carbon emission pathway. However, the natural exchange of carbon across the air-sea interface is governed by many small-scale, widely distributed processes, including molecular, turbulent, and bubble-mediated exchange, that are not accounted for in coupled ocean-atmosphere models. The exchange of atmospheric carbon dioxide is also a vital component of the biological and solubility pumps that naturally sequester carbon in the deep ocean and seafloor for centuries or more. Despite the importance of carbon dioxide exchange, direct measurements remain challenging due to its small signal-to-noise ratio over the open ocean. The scientific community has made it clear that without accurate measurements of air-sea carbon dioxide exchange and its drivers, this vital part of the Earth system will remain inadequately represented in climate forecasts and mitigation planning.
The solution:
This team intends to accelerate the development of more sophisticated measurements of air-sea carbon dioxide exchange to enable standardized and minimally supervised use on research vessels or other vessels of opportunity. To do so, they will combine high-quality, continuous carbon dioxide flux measurements with concurrent measurements of wind stress, wave breaking, solubility, and carbon dioxide disequilibrium between the ocean and atmosphere (ΔpCO2) to improve model parameterizations and climate forecasts. Central to these efforts is a closed-path carbon dioxide gas analyzer, which will address the problem of water vapor contamination that causes errors in many commonly used systems. These high-fidelity flux measurements will be augmented by a novel whitecap camera that leverages advancements in machine vision hardware to produce real-time image analysis of bubbles at the air-sea interface. When combined with direct measurements of carbon flux, this whitecap data will prove invaluable in parsing the bubble-mediated transfer processes from purely wind-driven gas transfer, which will lead to more accurate measurements, parameterizations, and predictions of air-sea carbon dioxide transfer on a global scale. Ultimately, the acceleration of these critical, real-time sensing technologies will play an important role in the ability of a “networked ocean” to accurately monitor and predict a key component of the global carbon cycle.
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“Through OCIA, we are committed to engaging ADI’s engineers and technologies to advance knowledge of the oceans, in order to gain a better understanding of how oceans are impacted by climate change and to develop solutions to restore ocean health. By doing so, we hope to drive meaningful impact on the global fight against climate change.”
- Vincent Roche, ADI