What Can Rivers Tell Us About Climate Change? [ICESCAPE]
Dr. Kevin Arrigo is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University. He is the Chief Scientist for NASA’s ICESCAPE (Impact of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment) mission this summer onboard US Coast Guard Cutter HEALY.
“The Arctic Ocean is unique in that it is almost completely surrounded by land,” relates Karen Frey, an Assistant Professor at Clark University, as she flashes a map on the screen.
Because of this unusual geography, numerous rivers swollen from the spring thaw disgorge their contents onto its broad, shallow coastal areas. Karen tells us how this makes the Arctic Ocean particularly vulnerable to contemporary changes taking place on the Arctic tundra, such as accelerating permafrost melt. As these previously frozen soils melt, they release compounds that have been stored there for thousands of years. These compounds drip into the groundwater and eventually end up in the network of rivers and streams that criss-cross the tundra in spring and summer.
Karen is interested in how much of this stuff is reaching the Arctic Ocean in rivers and what impact it is having on coastal ecosystems. Some of these compounds are easy to track because they give the water a distinctive yellow-brown color. Called colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), they form when decaying vegetation gets wet – similar to what happens when you dip your tea bag into a cup of hot water. Although these compounds are chemically benign, they reduce water clarity – which is bad for phytoplankton – and release carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide when they get blasted by the Sun’s UV rays.
Tech Tuesday: Inside the Pentagon Technology Expo
By Petty Officer 2nd Class Elliott Fabrizio
The Pentagon held its Technology Expo on Tuesday, with more than 40 companies displaying the latest in defense hardware and software.
For this week’s Tech Tuesday, I navigated my way through an ocean of business cards and free pens to highlight a few of the expo’s more interesting exhibits.
Just to get this out of the way, all of the booths were thrilling (especially the caterer’s booth with the chicken wings). These three represent the ones I personally thought were the most interesting and in no way reflects an official ranking system or a lack of quality in another exhibit. No angry letters please.
X-treme Protection Series (XPS) Shield Line
MC2 Fabrizio holds the mobile barricade's removable side panels with Brook Thomas from Patriot 3 Inc., Ballistics Division. (Photo: Patrick Raffaele)
Patriot 3, a tactical ops company, has recently begun marketing their new X-treme Protection Series XPS Shield Line to police agencies and the military, and it definitely has the elite Special Forces look. The XPS-G2 is a rolling bunker, so whether clearing a building or working a security checkpoint, this foldable ballistic shield can provide an ideal source of cover.
It’s made up of six panels, each able to withstand high-powered rifle rounds. The four side panels can be removed and used as individual bullet-proof shields. Fully assembled, it forms a three-person-wide wall on wheels. The side panels can fold like wings, enabling the unit to move through all commercial doorways. It’s topped off with three ballistic viewing ports and a small gun port in the center from which to shoot, so there’s no reason to leave the safety of this mobile barricade.
“You can actually do offenses with this, as opposed to just being in a defensive position. You’ve got a rolling bunker you can move forward as you advance,” said Brook Thomas, Patriot 3 Inc., Ballistics Division.
Eat or Be Eaten: The Life and Times of Phytoplankton
Sharmila Pal, graduate student at the University of South Carolina, studies organic carbon, or dead particles, sinking from the surface ocean to the deep ocean. (Photo: Haley Smith Kingsland)
Dr. Kevin Arrigo is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University. He is the Chief Scientist for NASA’s ICESCAPE (Impact of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment) mission this summer onboard US Coast Guard Cutter HEALY.
We’re surrounded by a green broth of life. The single-celled algae called phytoplankton are so dense that our instruments disappear from sight a mere few feet after we plunk them into the water.
A few days later, we sample the same area and find…nothing. Or almost nothing.
Phytoplankton are the staple food that sustains much of the Arctic marine ecosystem. The bread of the sea. But where did it all go?
That’s what Sharmila Pal, a graduate student of Claudia Benitez-Nelson (University of South Carolina), wants to find out.
In the Arctic, phytoplankton take advantage of the few months of sunshine and ice-free conditions in the spring and summer to grow to extraordinary numbers. So dense are these “blooms” that they completely overwhelm the ability of the grazers, mostly shrimp-like copepods, to consume them (just picture a cow with an entire pasture to itself). The phytoplankton that don’t get eaten will eventually sink after they suck the surface ocean dry of nutrients. Some of this energy-rich salad will decay as it sinks, but because the Arctic Ocean is so shallow, a lot of it reaches the bottom.
We’re just not sure how much.
Single Celled Food Factories of the Arctic [ICESCAPE]
The Arrigo Team: Zach Brown, Matt Mills, Gert van Dijken, Kevin Arrigo, Kate Lowry, Molly Palmer, Haley Kingsland. (Photo: Karen Romano Young)
Dr. Kevin Arrigo is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University. He is the Chief Scientist for NASA’s ICESCAPE (Impact of Climate change on the Eco-Systems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment) mission this summer onboard US Coast Guard Cutter HEALY.
The Arctic Ocean. It marks the end of the line for the gray whales’ epic 2-3 month, 5000-7000 mile journey. It’s also where Arctic terns raise their chicks after a grueling 12,000 mile migration.
But why here?
Surprisingly, during its abbreviated spring and summer season, the Arctic Ocean hosts among the most biologically rich waters on Earth. When the sun approaches its zenith and the sea ice begins to wane, the Arctic Ocean teems with life. This frenzy of biological activity is fueled by the rapid growth of phytoplankton, those tiny floating photosynthetic dynamos that turn carbon dioxide into sugary snacks for the rest of the Arctic marine food web.
My research group, along with that of Greg Mitchell (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), is interested in how these amazing single celled food factories grow so quickly under such harsh conditions.
Like the tomatoes in your garden, phytoplankton require both sunlight and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to thrive. A recent up-tick in the amount of phytoplankton, especially in the shallow areas of the Arctic Ocean, indicates that nutrients may now be more abundant than in the past.
Open Innovation in the Science and Technology Community
Dr. John Ohab is a new technology strategist at the Department of Defense Public Web Program.
The most recent edition of the Office of Naval Research’s Innovation Newsletter explores the increasingly important paradigm of “open innovation,” which is based on the idea that organizations can and should innovate by drawing from external sources of knowledge.
In the newsletter below, you’ll find an article capturing the entrepreneurial spirit that drives Open Innovation forward co-authored by three professors from the Naval Postgraduate School of Business; an article focused on core social technologies and their role in crowd sourcing, intra-government collaboration, and citizen science; an article on massive multiplayer games and insight generation; and an article on Open Innovation and lessons learned within a specific Naval science and technology community of interest.
The Innovation Newsletter is published quarterly and covers a variety of exciting topics. It include articles from scientists, engineers, warfighters, professors, program officers, and others, all sharing their insights and research on a particular field of interest. If you have any recommendations for newsletter topics or articles, e-mail melody.cook.ctr@navy.mil.
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