Working over the holidays

So, it's that time of year again.  Classes are over, finals are finished, and the campus is almost deserted.  The pressure is off, at least for the moment, and there is an overabundance of cookies, parties, and free food.

From PHD Comics

It sounds good, but I have mixed feelings about it.  I can't decide what I should be doing during this time.  School is technically no longer in session, but the University is still open...  Does this mean I am still expected to be working?  (I've decided that, since my credits for this semester are "research credits", and I get paid half time as a research assistant, that I should probably be working only half time now.)  There isn't really a set guideline on what is expected.

I could also use this time to be more productive.  It's quiet and peaceful, a perfect moment to catch up on research, put work into those side projects I never seem to have time for, and get myself organized.  But, do I only think this because I'm from the US and have been indoctrinated into the "work is life" culture?  Maybe a break from everything would be better for my health and sanity.  After all, it is a holiday - why would I be so crazy as to stay and work at this time?

If I take a serious break from grad school work, that doesn't necessarily mean less stress for me.  I'm just putting off the stress of research until I return to my office.  Not to mention that I would spend a good chunk of that time off catching up on cleaning and laundry.  Even planning to visit family and friends holds a similar level of stress - its just a different type.

So I'm torn.  I'm happy that its the holidays, and a lot of the little annoying things about grad school don't apply for a few weeks.  But its not clear to me that any of my options are winners.  In the end, I decided to compromise.  I'm spending some time with friends and family, but keeping part of the break for catching up on work.  To alleviate some of the normal pressure, I've been coming into my office every day, but not putting any expectations on what I get done.  If I feel motivated, great!  If I need a break and spend the whole day on social media sites, well, that's ok too.

In the end, when you don't hold a job that has defined hours, it's hard to define days off and vacation time.  So far, my mish-mash solution is (mostly) working for me.

Tell me, do you do anything differently over the holidays?  Is it a time to catch up on work or to put work aside?  I'd be interested in hearing other thoughts and plans, and maybe changing how I think about it.

Dive In: Oceans melting ice shelves

This is the second post in a new series called Dive Into Science.  Here I'll be explaining results from recent scientific papers.  Dive Into Science gives you a glimpse of current research in an easy to read format that anyone can understand.  To read more, just use the Dive Into Science tag.

Today's article is "Ocean variability contributing to basal melt rate near the ice front of Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica" by Isabella B. Arzeno et al, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2014.

If you think about sea level rise and future climate predictions, and all that, one of the biggest unknowns scientists are trying to understand is the rate at which the ice sheets are melting.  See, it's not exactly a straight-forward process to figure this out.  You would think that if you knew the temperature of the air, you could calculate how fast the ice melts, and how much melted water goes into the ocean.  But, you'd be wrong.

When we talk about melting ice sheets, we really mean the change in the ice sheet mass balance.  This is exactly what it sounds like.  To figure out how much ice is lost or gained from the ice sheet, we balance out all the sources and sinks.  In Antarctica, the major source of ice to the ice sheet comes in the form of snow over the continent.  This snow eventually compacts to form ice, and adds mass to the ice sheet.

Now, there are several ways an ice sheet can lose mass.  I've already mentioned melting ice from the top of the ice sheet - this does not have a large effect (true for Antarctica, not quite true for Greenland).  It is rarely warm enough to melt significant amounts of ice, and the water must also evaporate, or it will just refreeze at a later time.  More important are the outlets of the ice sheet, or where the ice meets the ocean.  Here, ice loss can occur through pieces of ice falling off as icebergs, or through the ocean melting the ice it touches.

Cartoon illustrating ice sheet mass balance.  Here, we're concerned with the Antarctica side.  Image by Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

This brings us to the topic of ice shelves.  Ice shelves are the part of the ice sheet that floats in the ocean.  Trick question: How much would sea level change if all the ice shelves melted?  Answer: No change, because they are floating.  BUT, it's even more of a trick question!  Even though the ice melted from the ice shelf doesn't contribute to sea level rise, it causes more ice to flow in from the ice sheet and increases the ice loss term of our mass balance.  And, if the balance shows that ice is being lost, well, that does contribute to sea level rise.

So these ice shelves then, act as plugs to the much larger ice sheet.  We need to understand how they melt, by how much, and how that affects the ice sheet.  In a best case scenario, the ice shelves melt a little bit, lose some icebergs off the edges, and are replaced by ice from the ice sheet to form a stable configuration.  In a worst case scenario, the ice shelves melt enough that they no longer act as stable plugs, and the ice sheet becomes unstable and eventually drains out through the open hole.  Even for the worst case, the process would take several hundred years for all the ice in Antarctica to drain out.  But, what is happening now with the ice shelves may determine the eventual fate of the ice sheet.  And, wouldn't it be nice to know what that is?

Figure taken from Arzeno, et al. 2014.  Data from the mooring under the iceshelf.  A) is current speed, b) is temperature difference from freezing, c) is calculated melt rate from temp, salinity, and current, d) is melt rate from tide velocities only, and e) is the tide velocities.  Notice how a higher temperature leads to a higher melt rate (b vs. c), and how peaks in the tide-only melt rate correspond to high tidal velocities (d vs. e).

This paper is a significant contribution to our understanding of one ice shelf in particular, in the Ross Sea.  (All the ice shelves behave differently, based on size, shape, what water they are in contact with, etc...)  It is the first time scientists have been able to simultaneously collect data on temperature, salinity, and currents under the Ross Ice Shelf.  These three variables are what you need to directly predict ice shelf melt.  The temperature tells you how much heat is available for use in the ocean water, the salinity helps determine what the temperature of ice melt actually is, and the current speeds give you an idea of how long it takes to replace this water.  As the ice melts, the underlying water grows colder and fresher, and the ice melt slows down.  In order to keep melting rates up, the water needs to be mixed around or replaced.

The authors use results from their mooring underneath the ice shelf, and from ocean models to better understand how the melt rate of the ice changes.  They find that tides play a large role, both in the data, and in the ocean model.  As the measurements were taken near the edge of the ice shelf, the movement of the tides back and forth under the ice shelf helps bring the cold melt water out, and replace it with warmer ocean water.  The authors also notice longer time signals in the currents that affect the melt rate, but don't have enough information to identify them.

Overall, this paper presents rare data on ice shelf melt rates for the Ross Sea, and also investigates the processes that contribute to the melt rate.  This information, along with research from other groups, can be used to better understand, and eventually predict, the fate of the ice shelves and how that affects the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Q&A on graduate school

Earlier this month I participated as a panelist in a Q&A session for undergrads about grad school.  The event was sponsored by the newly formed Fellowship of Women in Science at my university.

Everyone brought up such good points and examples from personal experience, that I couldn't let all that good information go to waste.  So, I present to you a summary of our awesome key points (that I remember).  Share with any undergrads you know, or comment if you think there's something important we missed!

In every point listed here, there is always a general course you probably should follow. But, there is also always someone whose specific case requires something quite different. Keep an open mind and consider your situation as you read.

Important points to remember when considering graduate school (in the sciences):

Email potential advisors ahead of time.  The general consensus (with one anomaly) is that you should tailor your graduate school search to specific advisors.  Find experts in the subject you are interested in researching and reach out to them through email to see if they have a place for you.  Include all your information, resume, transcripts, test scores, etc..., but take the time to make the email easy to read, not just an information dump.  Make sure they know within the first two sentences who you are, why you are emailing them, and why you think they are awesome.  You can elaborate on those points in the body of the email.  Also be aware that many professors will just not respond.  They may be busy, they may forget, or they may be out of town on field work or a sabbatical.  Give them at least a week or two to respond, then send a follow-up email (never more than two).  You want to gently remind them you exist, not come across as a spammy, annoying undergrad.

The one anomaly to this case was when you are switching fields between undergrad and graduate school.  (Namely, me.)  I had the appropriate background for my field, but no experience with it and not enough knowledge of the technical language to choose based on advisor alone.  In this case, I applied to various universities, and once accepted with funding, talked to the potential advisors about their open projects and choose the most interesting.

Our Q&A panel for undergraduates

Never settle for an unfunded position.  As long as you plan to go into the sciences, you should never, ever settle for a position that is unfunded.  There are enough funded opportunities out there that you should never even consider an unfunded position.  If you are dead set on a certain advisor who has no funding, try to fund yourself by an outside scholarship, or by being a teaching assistant.

Not only is it a huge hassle and not worth your time to be unpaid, but a department and faculty that cannot scrape together enough money (even in this funding climate) to support one graduate student is a red flag.  Also be wary of labs that take you on and expect you to work so many hours in the lab, but pay you by other means, like a TA-ship.  You essentially end up working 2 jobs on one salary and it's a quick path to burn-out.  If you are doing work that is not your own in any sort of lab, you should be getting paid as a research assistant.

Once you do find funding, try to ensure that it will last the entire time you are a student.  Ask if the department funds students as TAs for the entire time, or a limited number of years.  Ask your potential advisor how long the research project will last, and if you will be paid from another project after the first runs out.  You will always have opportunities to apply for scholarships, but they can be very competitive and sometimes have strict criteria.  Unless you already have a scholarship, don't count on that as a funding source.

Meet with your potential advisor to ensure his/her style will help you learn.  The majority of panelists mentioned the advisor-student relationship.  It is vital that you choose an advisor who will support you in the way that you need to succeed.  You need to relate to them well enough to feel comfortable approaching them frequently with questions and issues you may have.

There seem to be two major advising styles (with numerous variations) - hands-off and hands-on.  If you like to figure things out on your own with your own timing and don't need a lot of direction, you would work well with a hands-off advisor.  If you would rather be guided through a project and have someone around to question frequently, you would probably fit better with a hands-on advisor.  One panelist suggested that anyone starting research for the first time, typically as a masters student, would do best to have a hands-on advisor until they learned the research process.  One type is not necessarily better than the other, just analyze your own working and learning style to determine which would work best for you.

Talk with other graduate students, and look for red flags.  No matter how much you research your future advisor and talk to them, you won't know everything.  The best bet is to talk to their current and former graduate students.  Keep in mind that there will be students who simply chose the wrong advisor, so ignore one-off bad experiences. Instead, look for consistent red flags.  Two major examples are students who consistently take a long time to finish their degree, or to reach certain benchmarks, and complaints in the form of jokes about the lab or the advisor.  Use common sense too.  Complaints about eating ramen everyday may just be a reflection of the fact that graduate students don't make much no matter where you go, while jokes about an advisor always being busy may mean they don't have time for students or don't care enough about them.

Limitations from family and partners is common.  Every single panelist had a complication from family and partners on choosing where to go to graduate school.  It ranged from long term partners and spouses to needing to be close to family to military partners and planning for kids to the academic two-body problem.  My conclusion here is that very few people are "free" to go wherever they want.  Accept the limitations of your situation and do what it takes to work with them.  (Also make sure your chosen university/advisor is supportive of whatever limitations you have.)  Consider that graduate school comes at a time when life changes (partner, babies, aging parents, etc...) are common, and make sure you have space to live.  Don't just put your life on hold for school.

Be sure to read the fine print and get everything in writing before you agree.  None of the arrangements you make while preparing for graduate school mean anything unless you get them in writing!  Ask for an official letter with salary, benefits, and other arrangements spelled out.  Save any and all emails until you are sure things are working out how you expected.  A common problem is that academic turnover, whether in the administration or in the department, means all the verbal promises the last person in the position made mean absolutely nothing.  But, if you get it in writing, they are obligated to keep those promises.

Good luck on choosing an advisor and university that fits your goals and learning style!  Let me know how things worked out for you, and if you did anything differently in your search.

Memberships

It's that time of year again.  All the organizations that I'm a member of have been sending out mass emails asking me to renew.  Forking over money, especially during the run up to Christmas, is tough.

So, I've decided to review the organizations I'm a part of, or have interacted with in the past.  I want to get a good idea of what I'm paying, and what I'm getting for that price.  On a tight, graduate student budget, are these memberships really worth it?  Or are they an unnecessary line on my cv?

The ones I've reviewed here apply specifically to me, either as an oceanographer, an earth scientist, a polar scientist, a graduate student, or a woman scientist.  Some of them are also specifically US-based, but there may be similar counterparts in other locations.  Hopefully this at least gives you a good idea of where to start when thinking about professional organizations.

Organization: American Meteorological Society (AMS)
Description:  AMS is a national organization (with international members) primarily for meteorologists, but also encompasses oceanographers.  AMS sponsors an annual meeting as well as smaller meetings for specific sub-fields.
Student cost: $20
Student perks: Subscription to Bulletin of AMS (BAMS), subscription to Physics Today, ability to apply for awards/grants, Career Center, discounted meeting rates
My review:  BAMS is an excellent, detailed magazine that almost makes the membership worth it on its own.  I don't have that much time to read it, but when I do, I'm impressed.  As an oceanographer, a lot of what AMS sends out doesn't apply to me, but they have some excellent scholarships available, including travel money to attend the annual AMS meeting without submitting an abstract.  I've never been to the annual meeting, but I went to a smaller Polar-themed meeting, and it went very well.  If you are a meteorologist, this is a must-have membership.  As for me, I'm interested enough in BAMS, the career center, and the occasional specialty meeting to make it worth it.

Organization: Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS)
Description:  An organization for early career scientists studying the polar regions of the earth.  Anyone from social sciences to physical sciences, and beyond, is welcome.
Student cost: $0
Student perks: Job board, mentoring system, conference interactions/sessions, webinars and virtual poster sessions
My review:  APECS is an excellent networking tool.  For most major conferences that have a polar theme or sub-theme, they send some official representatives and hold networking events or mini-sessions on themes specifically for early career scientists.  They have a fairly robust job board, although the listings are often delayed from when they originally appear in other lists or on other boards.  APECS is also very involved with other organizations and governing bodies, which use APECS as a way to reach students.  For example, a large cryosphere meeting will be held in Europe next summer.  APECS worked with the conference committee to identify sessions where early career scientists could be session co-conveners and put out a call for applications to their members.  If you do research that is related to polar science, there is no reason you shouldn't be a member.

Organization: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Description: A large organization for anyone who falls under the broad category of geophysics.  Located in the US, but open to international members as well
Student cost: $20
Student perks: Subscription to EOS, discounted meeting rates, access to member sub-groups, Career Center, ability to apply for awards/grants
My review:  Apparently you can become quite involved in AGU if you are interested in that sort of thing, but I never really figured it out.  I am part of AGU to get the discounted student rate for the joint Ocean Sciences Meeting, held every other year.  The other stand-out part for me from AGU is their weekly magazine/newsletter, EOS.  EOS includes articles on science, policy, upcoming conferences and workshops, research highlights, award recipients, and job listings.  It is one of the first places that most institutions consider publishing job advertisements in.  The cost has recently jumped from $7 to $20, but is still very affordable and worth it.

Organization: Association for Women in Science (AWIS)
Description: US based organization for promoting the needs of women in science.  Open to anyone and actively participates in policy making in Washington, D.C.
Student cost: $65
Student perks: Subscription to AWIS Magazine, subscription to Washington Wire, free access to monthly webinars, option to join local Chapter or Affiliate groups, opportunity to engage in advocacy and public policy
My review:  AWIS is one of my favorite organizations.  The price is a bit steep for graduate students, but you get a lot out of it.  If you are at all interested in women in science, this organization is the best place to be.  They are very involved with science policy in the US, especially how it involves women.  The members are extremely active, which you can see by looking at their linkedin group alone.  The webinars cover a variety of topics from work-life balance, to leadership issues, to women's issues in science.  These webinars are offered at a price to everyone, but are free to members.  This one hurts my wallet a bit, but I get more out of it, per dollar, than most other organizations.  Also, if you are at ODU, they have just set up an AWIS affiliate group on campus.

Organization: Young Earth System Scientists (YESS)
Description:  An international network for early career scientists working in a earth systems field
Student cost: $0
Student perks: Networking opportunities, notification of upcoming events and conferences, online community board
My review:  YESS is a relatively new international early career group, that originated in Germany.  I haven't had much interaction with them yet, but they are very up and coming.  YESS is currently working on broadening its scope to be a truly international organization.  They are adding features and upgrading the organization to be closer to the level of APECS.  If you are interested in being a part of a community like this, it is an excellent time to jump in at the ground level and help them build it up.  If you don't want to get that involved, I'd suggest joining anyways and just keep up with their progress through emails as they add more functionality to the group.

Organization: The Oceanography Society (TOS)
Description: An international organization for oceanographers.
Student cost: $30
Student perks: Access to Oceanography magazine, reduced conference costs
My review:  Unless you are interested in leadership roles in an oceanographic-specific organization, I'd have to say membership in TOS is not worth it for students.  While the Oceanography magazine is an excellent publication, it is also open access, which means you can read it without joining the society.  Also, TOS co-sponsors conferences, but so far has not held their own.  Thus, if you plan to attend the Ocean Sciences Meeting, held every other year, a membership in AGU gets you the same discount as a membership in TOS.


I hope this gives you a good idea of what professional organizations are out there, and which ones are beneficial to you as a student to join.  I'd suggest not joining them all at once, but pick the ones that seem to fit you best, based on your preferences, and what conferences you may attend soon.  You can always join others later.  However, keep in mind that the price of these organizations goes up steeply (for most) once you are no longer a student.  Thus, if you can spare the money, now is the time to try them out and decide what is a good fit for you.

Are there any other organizations you would recommend?  What is your experience as a member?

Dive In: Iron from the seafloor to the surface

This is the first post in a new series called Dive Into Science.  Here I'll be explaining results from recent scientific papers in oceanography.  Dive Into Science gives you a glimpse of current research in an easy to read format that everyone can understand.  To read more about oceanography, just use the Dive Into Science tag.

Today's article is "Estimating the benthic efflux of dissolved iron on the Ross Sea continental shelf" by C.M. Marsay et al, published in Geophysical Research Letters, 2014.

This paper is all about iron supply from the seafloor to the surface ocean.  Specifically, in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, a place of extreme weather that's difficult to travel to and observe.

I've mentioned the importance of iron in the ocean before, and even talked about how it is measured, but let's do a quick recap.  Iron is known as a "micronutrient".  Phytoplankton need iron to carry out their biological processes; to grow and reproduce.  However, unlike other nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and carbon, iron is only needed in extremely small quantities.  Such small quantities, in fact, that it took oceanographers awhile to discover that iron was even used at all!

In most oceanic habitats, there is enough background iron that it doesn't really make a difference to the phytoplankton - they are more concerned about their main nutrients.  However, in certain locations, like the Southern Ocean, there are areas that are iron-limited, such as the Ross Sea.  Here, we see tons of nutrients in the surface waters, but no phytoplankton, because they are missing the iron they need.

The Ross Sea, Antarctica.  Shown with important landmarks, and the ship track for the cruise this data was collected on.

During spring time in the Ross Sea, which occurs in December in the Southern Hemisphere, the sea ice melts and the phytoplankton get enough sunlight to grow.  They multiply quickly during this "spring bloom" period, then die off as the iron runs out.  The iron in the surface ocean during springtime has either been mixed up from the bottom waters over the winter, or has been added from sea ice melting.

The authors of this paper are specifically investigating the iron that starts at the seafloor, often from the sediments on the bottom, and mixes upward to eventually reach the surface.  To do this, they took a series of measurements during a cruise of concentrations of dissolved iron in the water at various locations and depths in the Ross Sea.  Using these measurements, they can see how much iron is near the seafloor, and how quickly it depletes towards the surface.

Graph of how iron concentration changes with height above the seafloor in the Ross Sea.  Adapted from Marsay et al 2014.

Then, they combined these measurements with results from a regional ocean circulation model.  This model shows how the water moves and can give researchers a good idea of how long it takes to mix water upwards, and how much is mixed upwards.

So, if water at the bottom has a certain amount of iron in it, and is mixed upward at a certain rate, you can calculate how much iron from the bottom gets to the surface.  This calculation was the main purpose of this paper; to put a number on the flux of iron from near the seafloor.

Comparing this number with how much iron is used up in the surface showed that only about 1/10th actually made it from seafloor to surface.  The rest, even though it was mixed upwards as calculated, was probably exported from this area to other regions offshore by currents.

As a scientist, this paper holds two important results for the community.  The data that was collected was the first time detailed near-bottom sampling of dissolved iron was carried out in this area.  Then, the main result of the paper is the amount of iron that traveled from the seafloor to the surface.  In order to understand the iron-limited system in the Ross Sea, we need to know all the sources and sinks of iron: where does it come from, and where does it leave, and by how much?  This paper put a number on one of those sources, and estimated that a large portion of that source is exported before it reaches the surface.

This is a good example of how science progresses.  A cruise in early 2012 took water samples that were analyzed in a laboratory to produce dissolved iron data.  That data was then examined for patterns and explanations, combined with other available data (in this case model results), and published 2.5 years after the cruise.  The time it took from beginning to end is very reasonable for science, especially when you consider that the scientist is working on other projects and publications at the same time, perhaps even teaching classes, and the data is being used for other research.

Questions or thoughts about this new research?  I'll also take suggested topics for future article reviews.

Working on a Collaborative Project

Over the past several years, I've had some excellent first hand experience with large collaborations.  You know, the projects where there are PIs (that's Principal Investigators for you non-science people) from multiple institutions.  They are all interested in their own little slice of the project, yet they still need to work together to answer larger questions.

And so the endless conference calls begin...

It's really not that bad.  No, seriously.  It takes a lot of time to be a part of a larger group, time you could have spent doing your own work.  But then you pool the results of the joint effort to answer large, over-arching questions.  And it is amazing.

Instead of being stuck in your own niche, you branch out and grow.  Sure, you can still write the technical papers that only the handful of people in your sub-sub-sub-sub-field will understand and actually read.  But you also help write the synthesis papers that makes the work you've done useful to answer a bigger question.

Here are some of my reflections on the process of working as part of a large project and what I've learned from it:

You start to think about multi-disciplinary approaches.  For most projects, the important results aren't what some individual researcher happened to find.  The results that really matter are the synthesis of different types of data from different sub-fields to understand a larger system or process.  When you work on a large project, you still consider what advances you can make, but you also think a lot about how what you do can help someone else.  As the project progresses, you learn a lot more than you ever cared to know about other sub-fields.  This changes the way you think, and when you move on to new ideas and new projects in the future, you will already have an idea of how your work can help answer questions in a different field.  Right now, the most important results in earth sciences are coming from areas where multiple sub-fields intersect.

Prioritizing your work becomes more important.  Once you start working for a group, you have essentially two separate goals.  One is to finish your own work in a timely manner (so you can publish, graduate, move on...).  The other is to provide the support other project members need to do their work.  For me, prioritizing the proper goal was a matter of trial and error.  In some cases, maybe when a paper in review needs more data from you to get it published, it is clear the project work must come first.  But then there are also times when the project work isn't as important, and you can put it off to pursue your own work.  The right answer to which should you prioritize seems to be mostly based on specific situation.  Just keep a good handle on deadlines and expectations.  And notice you aren't the only one on the project who isn't doing as much as they could be.

Do not make unrealistic claims about how fast you can work.  Projects often require status updates and future plans to be given to the group.  And this is fine.  Just don't say you will finish such and such a stage by next month.  As soon as those words are out of your mouth, your equipment will break, or your computer will crash, and you'll be left making excuses.  Unless you are directly asked for a time when a certain part will be completed, don't offer any sort of information on timing.  Just report what you've done and outline what you plan to do next.  In the event that you are asked for a timeline, consider a worst-case scenario to finish a task, then double that amount of time.  Finishing something early always looks better than finishing it late, and the only difference is what you say at the beginning.

It is possible to herd cats gracefully.  Scientists are like cats.  Independent, intelligent, and impossible to herd without some incentive or bribery.  And even then, it's a toss up if they will go where you want them to.  So when you get a roomful of scientists, who each lead their own lab group, and specify one to be the leader for the project, it turns into an exercise on herding cats.  I've heard of projects where this effort does not go well.  The key to herding cats gracefully seems to be a healthy dose of respect all around, and a guiding leader.  If the head scientist on the project can guide discussions in the right direction, bring up important issues, and keep people on task, but NOT make decisions for everyone, it works well.  You end up with a group making joint decisions after discussions and consideration from everyone.  The best leader in this case is one who oils the gears of a machine rather than trying to drive it a certain direction.

Conference calls are the best way to stay in touch, and the bane of your existence.  Most projects use conference calls to stay in touch and provide updates on a weekly or monthly basis.  Rather than playing email tag, or traveling to the same location, it's a great way to check in, advance plans, and get feedback about important issues.  At the same time, conference calls can be a huge time sink.  It is unlikely that, unless you are the project leader, you will be interested in more than half of the call.  It takes time to hash things out, and during an hour long call, you may be bored and un-involved for most of it.  But beware of multi-tasking!  As soon as you stop paying complete attention, someone will ask you for details only you know about, and the only part of the question you will hear is your name.

You reap the benefits of co-authorship and exposure and your network expands.  When working on a larger project, you end up spending a good amount of time with the other project members.  By getting to know them, you are expanding your professional network, and increasing your exposure.  When you work on papers with them as a co-author, you become the expert they know.  They, like you, may not often work with many people in other fields.  Now that they know you, you are their go-to person for any questions related to your field.  If you do your work well, they may refer their other colleagues to you as well, and this can open up opportunities for other projects and collaborations in your future.

Overall, I found that working with a large project is very beneficial for me.  The extra time and work commitment is more than compensated for by the papers, connections, and exposure that comes from working with a large multi-disciplinary group.

So, what about you?  Have you had any experiences working on large projects?  Would you want to be a part of one in the future?

Alternate Careers

I've never been much of one to have a career plan.  I studied what I found interesting in school.  I'm one of the lucky ones though - I've been considered smart enough to be allowed to just keep on learning.  Thus I avoid all encounters with the dreaded job market.

This isn't really the best strategy though.  Sure, it feels easy to slide through life and grad school this way, but that's because this is the path of least resistance.  Think about it.  You are only exposed to people (professors) who finished that career path one way.  In terms of statistics, it is most certainly NOT a random sample.

The issue is that there are way more PhDs awarded than there are academic positions for them above the postdoc level.  A good portion of graduate students will not end up following a path similar to that of their mentors and advisors.  There's a good chance that could be you.  So, have you thought about what you can do outside of academia?

First, let's get over the term "alternate career".  Sure, if you want to do a search on the subject, that's probably the best phrase to use.  But it implies that a career in academia is the "right" end to a graduate school start, and all other choices are second-best.  This stigma is still present, especially among older faculty members, but it no longer makes sense.  In a society focused on work-life balance, your career choice is no longer a strict indicator of your intelligence.  Never feel like choosing an non-academic career path is a step down.

Now that your head is in the right place, you need to figure out your options.  This will depend on your field, and also on what degree you end up with.  And any extra experience you may have.  It's not always obvious at first what you can do with a grad school degree besides academic work.

The first option that typically comes to mind, at least in the sciences, is science writing or outreach.  You can also consider a job in industry.  Almost every science-based field has a corresponding industry, but it may not be clear at first.  I found some of the best information in library books and by signing up for job boards and email lists.  Another option is to consult a career counselor - and there's a good chance your university offers a service like this.

In the end, it's up to you to choose the career that best fits your skills and lifestyle.  The first step in this direction is to know what your options are.  So don't be taken in by thinking academia is the only path.  Find people who have done something different with the same background.  After you know what's out there, you'll be able to make much better career decisions.

On rejection

Graduate school is great at weeding people out.  For the most part, it does what it should: it lets the independent thinkers through.  Theoretically, if you are capable of making decisions, thinking critically, and you actually put the effort in, grad school should train you to use those abilities in a specific field.  And then you graduate.

Practically, graduate school selects for other traits as well.  One of these is the ability to overcome the fear and dread of rejection.

Let's face it.  Rejection is a normal part of the academic experience.  If you do a quick internet search on "academic rejection", a host of articles will appear on all aspects of rejection.  Rejection in writing.  Rejection in grants.  How to handle rejection as a academic.  Dealing with the emotional side of rejection.  Dealing with the professional side of rejection.  And on and on and on.

As a grad student, you don't really need to know all these nuances at first.  What you do need to know is that you WILL get rejected.  Often.  And it will almost always have nothing to do with you.

Now that you know what's coming, here are some reasons why rejection is not your fault.

Finishing up - Update #9

We've made it to the last update for the cruise.  Hard to believe we've finished up already!  It will be nice to head back, see family members, and sleep in a real bed.

Updates from the final two cruise days are below.  I've also included some information on what happens to the project now that the cruise is over.  Thanks for following along with us on this adventure!

Day 15
This was our final day to do science.  In order to make it back to port in time, we needed to leave to head back between noon and 3pm.

So we started off the day as usual, with a CTD cast, followed by a trace metal CTD cast.  The waves calmed down a bit from yesterday, but it was still rather rough while we were sampling.

Last deployment of the trace metal CTD

A common tradition on research vessels that do CTD work is to decorate styrofoam cups and send them down with the CTD.  Depending on how deep the CTD goes, the cups are crushed by the pressure into miniature versions.  If you do it right, mostly by stacking the cups together, they retain their original shape.  Once the CTD comes back up, everyone has a personalized souvenir from the cruise.

Decorated cups before going down with the CTD

Getting the shrunken cups out from the laundry bag that went down with the CTD

Since we had time for another CTD cast, we attached our decorated styrofoam cups and sent it down to 2km.  We tried to finish our typical sampling scheme by doing a PAR cast, but it ended up being too rough for that.  The instrument kept getting pulled into the shadow of the boat, which, since we were measuring light through the water, would really throw off the results.  It was also too rough to deploy the towfish.

Our souvenirs with an original size cup in the back

We finished up our final science day by retrieving the last drifter.  Once drifters are in the water long enough, say a few days, they start to become a magnet for fish.  Barnacles begin to grow on them, and where there's a small organism, there's a bigger one coming trying to eat it.  The end result of which is that we tried to fish for a bit around the drifter before pulling it in.  Saw lots of Mahi, and someone even had a small shark on a line for a bit, but we didn't manage to catch anything.  So we pulled in the drifter and headed for home.

Pulling in the last drifter

Day 16
Today was our final day out at sea.  It was a completely gorgeous day, sunny and calm.  We alternated between packing up the labs and sitting out on deck enjoying the weather.  A lot of the equipment had to be rinsed in fresh water and then dried before being stored, since saltwater is a strong corrosive.  With the nice weather, we were able to get a lot of that done as well, which should help us load up faster once in port.  We arrived back in Delaware at around midnight, signaling the official end to the cruise.

What happens next?
The cruise is now over, but the project we are all a part of will continue.  It won't be near as exciting as several weeks spent at sea, but this is where we make the work we've done collecting data matter.  Since daily updates would become rather boring and meaningless at this point, I'd like to give you an idea of the next steps in the science process.  Here's what will happen:

Analysis.  The first step is to continue the analysis we began on board.  We have initial results from several experiments, but there are more to be run that we haven't even started yet.  They tend to be the ones that are more complicated and require either more time or different instruments.

We also have initial data from the CTD casts, the PAR casts, and the atmospheric chemistry measurements.  All of these data have bad data points in the files, including points where the ship's smoke stack interfered air measurements, or when the CTD recored weird temperatures and salinities before it entered the water.

Everything needs to be plotted in graphs and analyzed to see if it makes sense.  If it looks good, then we start comparing various data sets to find relationships between them.  Some of it may be causes and effects we expected to see, or we might find something new.  Finally, we have to run statistics on it all to make sure what we find is significant, and not just lost in the error bars on the measurements.

Modeling.  A major way we plan to use the data we gather, after it is processed and analyzed, is in models.  The plan is to construct ocean and atmospheric models based on the conditions on our cruise.  The models begin with basic equations representing physical, chemical, and biological processes.  For example, there may be a gravity term, so that in the model, denser water and air will tend to sink below lighter water and air.  Or a reproductive term, where if phytoplankton take up nutrients, the number of them will increase.

Then, we add in the information we get from the data.  Based on what we found on the cruise, and the base equations of the model, we can figure out what is happening in the places or times we didn't measure.  We may also get a better idea of how the different pieces work together, and understand the processes that drive our results from measurements.

Writing papers.  The final step in any project is to write scientific papers about the findings.  None of what we do will ever be accepted until it is published in a peer-reviewed journal.  This means that when we submit a paper to a journal, it goes out to other scientists to review before it is published.  They look at the data, at your methods, and at the conclusions you drew from the work.  If there are any mistakes, or it doesn't look right, or you are missing something, they let you know.  The paper won't be published until it is fixed, or until you can successfully defend why you did what you did.

From this project, there will be a series of papers published.  We don't know what they will be just yet, but there will probably be several different types.  For instance, there may be an overarching paper describing how all the different parts of the project work together to describe the influence of rain on the ocean.  Each lab group may also have a paper or two on their specific part of the project.  Another paper may describe the model and how it works.  It is hard to tell ahead of time exactly what will be publishable and how to organize it into different papers.

Overall, the work to finish this project may take several years in total.  In part, this is because different projects overlap.  In order to keep the science going, a plan for a new project has to be submitted to a funding agency before the old project is over.  Often, scientists will be writing the papers from the last project while collecting data for the next.  Given that and the other responsibilities of scientists, who are often professors as well, it is no wonder the project will extend for so long past the end of the cruise.

Farewell from the DANCE crew!

This has been the final post on this research cruise.  I hope you enjoyed following along with us as we traveled the high seas!

More posts in this series:

Upcoming Cruise
Cruise Delays
Upcoming Cruise, Part II
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5

Update #6 
Update #7
Update #8

Rough Seas - Update #8

These few days were interesting as the weather patterns brought some rain that we wanted, but also some rough weather.  The ship's motion went from a gentle rolling to feeling more like an amusement park ride!

Day 13

Around mid-morning, we made it back to our eddy #2 and the three drifters we had previously deployed.  At first glance, it looked like two of the drifters had gotten tangled together, despite being deployed 1km apart.  We went ahead and did a normal and trace metal CTD cast.

Preparing the trace metal CTD for deployment

The weather outlook for the next day or so is not that great.  We are expecting rain, which is good for the project, but the winds are supposed to pick up as well.  Already we can tell the seas are beginning to get a bit rough.  Since day 15 will be our last science day, and might still be rough, we decided to pick up two of the drifters now.

We went for the two that were tangled together, but they ended up not being tangled, just floating side by side.  After battling some large waves, during which almost everyone on the back deck got soaked, we managed to pull in both drifters.

Pulling the drifter over the side railing

Rinsing off the drifters with freshwater after retrieving them.

Then, we traveled back to the last drifter and did a PAR cast as well as another CTD cast.  It was too rough to deploy the towfish, so we stopped sampling for the day and waited for the rain to arrive.

One drifter had a passenger that we returned to the sea

Day 14

The rain did arrive today, but the seas were very rough.  Too rough, in fact, to deploy any sort of scientific equipment.  The danger is, in rough seas, that the boat rolls quite a bit side to side.  It has to be stationary to deploy the CTD, and that leaves us at the mercy of the swell.  If the swell is too much, the cable holding the CTD will lose tension as we roll to one side, then snap back tight as we roll to the other.  Too much of a snap and the cable breaks!

It rained pretty good in the morning, but we were unable to collect any because the salt spray was reaching the height of the bucket, which is several decks up.  The seas calmed down a bit later on - not enough to deploy any equipment, but we were able to collect rain from a second shower in the afternoon.

The rest of the day was spent planning out our final science day tomorrow and discussing packing up and loading up to go back home.

Atmospheric chemistry

If you think about the process we are studying, where rain deposits nutrients to the surface ocean, causing the phytoplankton to respond, atmospheric chemistry comes in at the very beginning.  We want to know how the nutrients got in the rain to begin with.

The majority of the atmosphere is made up of nonreactive chemical compounds, mainly oxygen and nitrogen.  We are interested in the ~1% that is reactive, specifically, how pollutants get into the rainwater.  The main indicator of man-made pollution is nitric oxide, or NO.  During the process of combustion, say when you drive your car, or when our ship is steaming through the ocean, the heat from the process breaks apart N2 molecules and produces nitric oxide.  There are a few natural sources of nitric oxide, including lightning and certain soil microbes, but they are episodic or not significant enough to be important in a marine environment.

Setting up instruments on the fly bridge before we departed - Photo courtesy of Doug Martins

Once nitric oxide is produced, it can react with ozone (O3) in the atmosphere to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2).  If there is sunlight available, the nitrogen dioxide can split back up into nitric oxide and oxygen, which goes back to ozone.  Essentially, it is a balanced reaction.  Both processes happen at once, keeping the relative levels the same in the atmosphere.  However, since one process requires energy input by sunlight, the balance levels are different overnight than they are during the day.  So at night, there is a tendency to build up nitrogen dioxide.

Now let's talk about how these molecules get into rainwater.  Nitrogen dioxide is more soluble in water than nitric oxide, which means it can more easily dissolve and be included in the water.  Nitrogen dioxide can also react with water to form nitric acid, which is super soluble.  Once nitric acid gets into the rain water, it splits apart to form nitrate, a form that phytoplankton can use.  The rest of the process is straightforward - the nitrate-filled rain falls and supplies nutrients to the surface ocean.

Performing some maintenance on the atmospheric chemistry insturments

In order to measure this process occurring in the atmosphere, we measure nitrogen dioxide and nitric oxide (NO2 and NO).  The air in general over the ocean is very clean.  Thus, anything we measure is from air masses than used to be over land and have picked up pollution from sources there.  There has been a slight problem with the ship's smoke plume interfering with the instruments.  About 50% of the time, we end up measuring air that is contaminated by the plume.  The relative ratios of the two molecules we are measuring are so different in the plume versus in clean ocean air, that it isn't an issue to identify those points and remove them from our analysis.

Our atmospheric chemist hard at work analyzing data.

As a side project, we are also measuring nitrogen dioxide and ozone in the total atmospheric column above us.  In part this is to detect plumes of pollution that are above the bottom atmospheric layer, which our other instrument would not detect.  The other part is to validate satellite measurements. We can measure the same molecules in the atmosphere via satellite, but we need observations on the surface to make sure those calculations are done correctly.  This is only the third time this instrument has been used over water (instead of land), and the first time it is out on the open ocean (instead of coastal zones).

Eventually, the measurements we make will be analyzed to help us learn more about the process of depositing nutrients from rain.  They will help increase the accuracy of satellite measurements of the atmosphere, and will also be used to help validate an atmospheric model.

Thanks for reading!  As you know, we are getting to the end of our cruise.  The next post will be the last of the daily updates, and I'll also talk about what lies ahead for us after this phase of the project finishes.

More posts in this series:

Upcoming Cruise
Cruise Delays
Upcoming Cruise, Part II
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5

Update #6 
Update #7
Update #9

Searching for rain - Update #7

Greetings from a happy science crew!  We are nearing the end of our voyage and everything seems to be working out well.  There was a time before the cruise began, that we all thought the worst might happen.  That we would end up at sea for weeks running after rain and never finding any.  Everyone would be frustrated and grumpy and it would just be awful.

Instead, we've got rain by the bucket!  Literally!

Day 11

This day was a bit of a bipolar experience.  Since the night before, we were heading further south in search of rain.  For much of the day, people were just sitting around.  We caught up on some lab work, thought out some contingency plans, and kept an eye on the radar.  It was quiet and a bit tense as the rain system we were chasing kept moving south and we couldn't quite catch up with it.

Our chief scientist keeping an eye on the radar as it begins to rain

Then, around 5pm, we started getting a few sprinkles.  The sky wasn't too dark and we weren't sure we had really found the rain we were looking for.  Gradually, the rainfall began to increase and it rained steadily for good, long time.  A wave of relief and energy swept through the ship.  Our rain gauge recorded about 1.2cm of rainfall, and, due to the low wind conditions, we managed to completely fill our rain bucket!  And there was much rejoicing.

Gazing out at the stormy seas

A few hours later, after the rain had stopped, we jumped into action.  We hadn't done any before sampling of this location, having prioritized the quest for rain.  We made up for it by doing two CTD casts: one right outside the area that had been rained on, and one right smack in the middle of it.  After we did the second cast, we deployed one drifter to keep track of that water mass so we could sample it again later.  Then we dropped the towfish in the water and circled the drifter for a few hours collecting water late into the evening.

Sampling the CTD cast in wet weather

Day 12

After a late night of sampling, it was back up and at it again early this morning.  We did another series of CTD casts, one normal and one trace metal, followed by a PAR cast before pulling the drifter back on board and heading north.  After the rain stopped the day before, the winds picked up a good bit, creating some decent waves.  Getting the drifter out of the water proved to be a bit of a challenge, and everyone involved ended up wet.

Catching the drifter in some decent sized waves

Thankfully we had the rest of day to recover from the intense sampling and lack of sleep.  We are steaming back to our eddy #2 to pick up sampling there again tomorrow.  Everyone is using the time wisely to catch up on lab work and prepare for our last spurt of sampling the next few days before heading home.

Aerosol sampling

I've mentioned that we've been sampling aerosols most nights we've been out.  In order to sample, we must be headed into the wind so that there is no contamination from the ship's smoke stacks.  Since we can't do much other sampling while we are moving, we've been doing aerosols at night while most people are asleep.

The aerosol sampling is run by a graduate student who is using the data as part of a Masters project, and is assisted by a visiting undergraduate trainee.  These lucky two stay up all night keeping an eye on the sampling and sleep during the day while the rest of us are running around making noise.  It's a tough job being on the opposite schedule of everyone else, but they've done great so far.

Preparing the aerosol sampler to run

The aerosols we are interested in are basically different types of land-based pollutants.  Our scientific equipment isn't measuring the types of aerosols - its collecting iron particles that are present in the air.  That means this project falls under the trace-metal clean category.

Setting up the aerosol sampler

The aerosol sampler consists of a series of filters.  Air is pulled through the filters, and each filter collects particles of different sizes, from large to small.  It takes several hours of continual running to collect enough to measure.  Once enough air has been filtered, each filter is taken out and cut into smaller pieces.  Then, the samples are "leeched" with deionized water (clean water), so that the particles on the filter are released into the water and dissolved.  Now the iron from the air is in a form to be analyzed in a trace metal clean lab.

The aerosol crew working in the lab

We already know that iron is a micronutrient for phytoplankton.  Even if it isn't limiting, we are still interested in where the iron comes from that gets in the surface ocean.  We think a lot of it is deposited from the atmosphere, but there aren't many measurements.  The goal of the aerosol sampling is to get a better idea of how much iron is deposited.  There are several questions we can answer with this analysis.

By comparing the amount of iron in the air to the amount in the rain, we can see if iron is more likely to be deposited in wet or dry conditions.  There is another aerosol sampler running on the Eastern Shore area of Virginia, collecting the same types of samples.  If we compare the two, we can determine how much iron leaves the air between the coast and the open ocean.  We can also determine potential types of pollution and source locations by using pollutant maps to track where the aerosols originated.

Most of this work will be done after the cruise is over, as part of a Masters project.  But for now, the data we collect on aerosols here will help us specifically understand this system, and understand the importance of rain in depositing iron to the surface ocean.

As always, thanks for reading.  Stay tuned for the (most likely) exciting end to our cruise - see how it all works out!

More posts in this series:

Upcoming Cruise
Cruise Delays
Upcoming Cruise, Part II
Update #1
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5

Update #6 
Update #8 
Update #9