Collaborative Research: Development of Autonomous Underwater Instruments to Sense Zooplankton and Their Environment Using a Laser Optical Plankton Counter

Texas A&M Research Foundation, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

0321167 Checkley 0320739 Jackson This collaborative Major Research Instrumentation award to Scripps Institution of Oceanography (University of California at San Diego) and Texas A&M University provides funds for development of the SOLOPC, an autonomous profiling float that combines existing SOLO float profiler technology with a laser optic plankton counter (LOPC) to provide a means of assessing oceanic zooplankton distribution in addition to physical ocean properties and circulation. The initial objective is to develop an instrument that will produce 50-100 profiles over a period up to one year, during which it will transmit position and profile data via satellite when at the surface, and ultimately be recovered. The longer-term objective is to develop relatively inexpensive, expendable instruments, suitable for ocean basin-scale studies. The development effort builds on several generations of profiling floats, including ALACE and SOLO, which profile, drift and transmit physical oceanographic and position data via satellites to autonomously profile currents and physical properties of the ocean. The additional data here on zooplankton size with the LOPC will be augmented with a fluorometer for measuring chlorophyll a as well. Field evaluation and testing is incorporated in the three-year development effort in several ways. Initial evaluation of float parameters will be tested offshore from Scripps Institution in small boats. More complete testing will involve 20 days of UNOLS vessel time (Sproul, New Horizon), validating SOLOPC data against shipboard data collected with water samples and net tows, and the final testing will include deployment during a CALCOFI cruise off Southern California, with the floats transiting the standard grid of Southern California stations simultaneously with the research vessel. This instrumentation award is supported by the Division of Ocean Sciences at NSF. Scripps Institution of Oceanography provides cost sharing support from non-federal funds. ***