Ship Operations-R/V New Horizon

University Of California-San Diego Scripps Inst Of Oceanography, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

Scripps proposes to operate the research vessel New Horizon to support NSF-funded scientific research at sea in the year 2005. NSF-sponsored projects account for 47% of the work of the vessel for the year. The ship will spend 2005 primarily in Southern California waters, with port calls exclusively in San Diego. However the schedule contains three voyages to Mexican waters in the Gulf of California and will support eleven very different scientific programs, some with more than one voyage. This is a five year cooperative agreement, and funding for the years 2006-2009 will be renegotiated and will depend on the number of days at sea in support of NSF-funded research programs requiring the use of an Oceanographic platform. Broader Impacts: The primary impact of ship operations is on the education of many students, principally but not exclusively graduate students in the ocean sciences. The great majority of scientific parties on Scripps (and other UNOLS) ships contain students in their ranks. They form integral parts of the research teams. By going to sea they obtain firsthand experience of the conduct of seagoing research, they learn the difficulties that surround the gathering of meaningful observations from the real ocean, and they gain valuable preparation for leading their own research projects at sea in their future careers. A second important impact is on public appreciation of ocean science. Research ships are novel, attractive venues for tours by school groups and other interested citizens. To the maximum extent feasible within the context of necessary work and constraints of new port and vessel security requirements, Scripps tries to accommodate all such outreach instances in port, in San Diego and elsewhere, for we know that this gives positive representation to science in general and to seagoing ocean science in particular. In an example of outreach to the general public through the education community, at the request of the education coordinator at the University of Rhode Island, a science teacher from Washington State participated in a cruise to Mexican waters with a Chief Scientist from Oregon State University on this ship owned and operated by SIO in a unique coordination of effort. Scripps also frequently receives inquiries from the public about volunteering to work at sea on a research vessel, often as a result of having browsed the marine (http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/shipsked/) or general institutional (http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/) websites. They maintain information about volunteering on the site, pointing such inquirers toward scheduled chief scientists who may have need of volunteer assistance. They have university procedures in place to enroll volunteers on behalf of projects headed by UC-affiliated investigators, thereby providing appropriate insurance coverage, etc. In cases when volunteers and projects do connect successfully, strong educational experiences arise that can awaken a continuing interest in the oceans and ocean science. Intellectual and Technical Merit : The intellectual merit of the proposed work is indirect. It derives from the intellectual merit of the individual research projects that depend upon the shipboard work at sea. For example, the two voyages into Mexican waters for Prahl will assay the abundance and distribution of a particular phytoplankton species (Emiliana huxleyi) at a site in the Guaymas Basin, to be compared to a sampling at Station ALHOA in the subtropical north Pacific under different seasonal oceanographic conditions, and will also examine the composition of a particular class of lipids (alkenones) found in these organisms. The compositions vary according to the ambient conditions (temperature) surrounding the live organisms. Thus the compositions of the same lipids found in sediments may serve as a means of inferring ocean temperatures and climate in the geological past. The 2005 cruises are part of a longer set of voyages to extend this research to other oceanographic locations and settings. A technical/logistical factor of importance, reflected in the Prahl work, is that by virtue of being home-ported in San Diego, New Horizon affords a capability to conduct repeated (time series) of measurements in this region on an economical yet capable general-purpose vessel. The scheduled voyages for Smith (NSF support), Venrick (NOAA) and Hildebrand (Navy) are further examples of this need for repeated access to the same regional sites. An additional funded NSF repeat-sampling requirement has arisen under the LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) program (Ohman) and now awaits ship availability. This requirement will recur in future years