About a month ago now, my office was unexpectedly flooded with a large number of undergraduate students. Their expressions ranged from nervous to interested to bored.
Mine was one of pure panic.
You see, about 30 seconds before they entered, I had managed to spill an extra large mug of mango tea all over everything. My desk, my papers, the keyboard, my pants, the floor... Everything.
And here were these new students, ready to be welcomed and shown around. Somehow, I managed to get up and greet them with a smile. Then I squelched around for a few minutes, before sitting with them for a welcome talk. In a cold classroom. With wet pants.
27 June 2014
24 June 2014
Productivity Hacks: Background Music
If you pick the right sort of music to listen to while you work, the day can just fly by. I just love having those awesomely productive day while rocking out. The problem is always the day (or two) after. For some reason, I can't get back to the same productivity level. And so I change genres. Or try silence for a few days. Once I've managed to completely forget all about that awesomely productive day, I get another one!
Clearly, I am not satisfied with these few and far between days. So I did some personal research on listening to music while working. Here's what I've found so far:
Clearly, I am not satisfied with these few and far between days. So I did some personal research on listening to music while working. Here's what I've found so far:
16 June 2014
Upcoming research cruise
I am excited to announce that I will be participating in a research cruise this summer! Of course, the main reason I jumped at the opportunity was to meet my ship time/field work requirement to graduate. Three weeks at sea sounds much better than 10 days traipsing around marshes risking mosquitoes, ticks, and all manner of creepy-crawlies. I'm much more of a water person than a rock person anyways.
Right, back to the cruise. The project is DANCE, or Deposition of Atmospheric Nitrogen to Coastal Ecosystems. (I just love science acronyms, don't you? We've been calling ourselves DANCErs.) The title is rather self-explanatory, but let me break it down for you. The purpose of the cruise is to see how much nitrogen is deposited on the surface of the ocean after a rain event, and how it affects the phytoplankton living there.
Now, nitrogen, along with phosphorus and carbon, is one of the major nutrients required to support basic plant life. In the case of the ocean, our "plants" are phytoplankton, small single celled organisms that take up sunlight. They form the basis of the food chain in almost any ocean ecosystem: Phytoplankton are eaten by other larger plankton, which are eaten by even larger plankton, which are eaten by small fish, which are eaten by bigger fish, and well, you get the point. Rain, especially rain that has been polluted by the atmosphere over large cities, can carry with it enough nitrogen to provide phytoplankton an extra source of nutrients. Or, so we are hypothesizing.
The study area is off the East Coast of the US, in the mid-Atlantic. This region is ideal, as it gets a significant amount of rain each summer, so that we will actually catch a rain shower while we are out on the ship. Most of the weather here comes from the west, so it is likely to carry enough nitrogen from being polluted from all those East Coast cities. Finally, once you get far enough away from the coast, out near the Gulf Stream, there are less sources of nutrients. Thus, the additions from the rain should make a large enough impact to be seen.
Now, being a physical oceanographer, I want nothing to do with all this nitrogen business. Too much chemistry work to measure and chart nutrients. Luckily for me, I will be working with a climate scientist while on board. He is specifically interested in the physical conditions of our study area; the meteorological conditions that are bringing the rain to the area, and the physical characteristics of the water in which the phytoplankton live. Specifically, I will be taking hydrographic measurements on the cruise, that is, measurements of the water temperature and salinity. These aren't direct measurements on the phytoplankton, but they can tell us a lot about what is going on in the study area. Here's a brief overview:
Temperature:
Water temperature can tell us how well the phytoplankton are doing. They can survive at a range of temperatures, but if they get close to the edge of that range, or if the temperature changes too quickly, they might go into shock. Scientifically, this is referred to as "the phytoplankton are unhappy". Unhappy phytoplankton may stop growing and using nutrients, even if they are available, which would throw off our results.
Salinity:
In this specific case, it is more likely that salinity changes will make the phytoplankton unhappy. Like temperature, there is a range of salinities at which phytoplankton do well, and a range at which they are unhappy and eventually die. If we encounter a large rainstorm, the rain on the surface of the ocean may make it too fresh for the phytoplankton, and they wouldn't use up the extra nitrogen from the rain. However, if there is enough mixing in the upper ocean layer, then the salinity wouldn't change that much overall, and the nitrogen would be available for the phytoplankton to use. By seeing what the salinity in the ocean looks like, we can tell what is happening to the phytoplankton.
Density:
Once we measure both temperature and salinity, we can use those to calculate density. Remember, cold water is denser than warm water, and salty water is denser than fresh water. Density will let us examine other sources of nutrients. There are essentially two states for the ocean to be in: stratified or mixed. In the stratified state, there is a layer of water warmed by the sun (and sometimes freshened by rain) on top of a layer that is denser, and these layers will stay mostly separate if there is nothing to mix them.
Phytoplankton can only survive in the upper layer of the ocean, since once they get too deep, there is not enough light to survive. In the deeper layers of the ocean, there are more nutrients, since there aren't any living phytoplankton to use them up.
This stratified state can turn into a mixed state, where the two layers mix together down to a certain depth, normally from being stirred around by wind. So when we measure after a rain event, if we see two layers of density, the stratified state, we know that any extra nitrogen the phytoplankton are using up is from the rain. However, if we don't see two layers near the top of the ocean, then there was probably enough wind with the rain to mix the ocean and bring deep nutrients to the surface. So any extra nitrogen in that system could be either from the deep ocean or from the rain.
Whew, what an explanation! Temperature and salinity can tell us a lot more about the ocean than what I've just mentioned, but I'll come back to that another time.
I plan to blog my experiences over the course of this cruise. After all, being an ocean modeler, I don't get out much and don't experiment at all! This will be a great chance for me to learn more about observational oceanography and how ocean data is collected from a ship. (I normally find all my data online - someone else does the hard work.) Check back for more updates as we get closer to mid-July!
 |
| My future home for 3 weeks, the R/V Hugh R. Sharp |
Right, back to the cruise. The project is DANCE, or Deposition of Atmospheric Nitrogen to Coastal Ecosystems. (I just love science acronyms, don't you? We've been calling ourselves DANCErs.) The title is rather self-explanatory, but let me break it down for you. The purpose of the cruise is to see how much nitrogen is deposited on the surface of the ocean after a rain event, and how it affects the phytoplankton living there.
| Phytoplankton! In this case, coccolithophores. |
| What I imagine the food chain looks like, more or less... |
The study area is off the East Coast of the US, in the mid-Atlantic. This region is ideal, as it gets a significant amount of rain each summer, so that we will actually catch a rain shower while we are out on the ship. Most of the weather here comes from the west, so it is likely to carry enough nitrogen from being polluted from all those East Coast cities. Finally, once you get far enough away from the coast, out near the Gulf Stream, there are less sources of nutrients. Thus, the additions from the rain should make a large enough impact to be seen.
| Hoping for a nice peaceful rain, no storms please! |
Now, being a physical oceanographer, I want nothing to do with all this nitrogen business. Too much chemistry work to measure and chart nutrients. Luckily for me, I will be working with a climate scientist while on board. He is specifically interested in the physical conditions of our study area; the meteorological conditions that are bringing the rain to the area, and the physical characteristics of the water in which the phytoplankton live. Specifically, I will be taking hydrographic measurements on the cruise, that is, measurements of the water temperature and salinity. These aren't direct measurements on the phytoplankton, but they can tell us a lot about what is going on in the study area. Here's a brief overview:
| This is who I am NOT. But, good for you, chemists! |
Temperature:
Water temperature can tell us how well the phytoplankton are doing. They can survive at a range of temperatures, but if they get close to the edge of that range, or if the temperature changes too quickly, they might go into shock. Scientifically, this is referred to as "the phytoplankton are unhappy". Unhappy phytoplankton may stop growing and using nutrients, even if they are available, which would throw off our results.
Salinity:
In this specific case, it is more likely that salinity changes will make the phytoplankton unhappy. Like temperature, there is a range of salinities at which phytoplankton do well, and a range at which they are unhappy and eventually die. If we encounter a large rainstorm, the rain on the surface of the ocean may make it too fresh for the phytoplankton, and they wouldn't use up the extra nitrogen from the rain. However, if there is enough mixing in the upper ocean layer, then the salinity wouldn't change that much overall, and the nitrogen would be available for the phytoplankton to use. By seeing what the salinity in the ocean looks like, we can tell what is happening to the phytoplankton.
Density:
Once we measure both temperature and salinity, we can use those to calculate density. Remember, cold water is denser than warm water, and salty water is denser than fresh water. Density will let us examine other sources of nutrients. There are essentially two states for the ocean to be in: stratified or mixed. In the stratified state, there is a layer of water warmed by the sun (and sometimes freshened by rain) on top of a layer that is denser, and these layers will stay mostly separate if there is nothing to mix them.
Phytoplankton can only survive in the upper layer of the ocean, since once they get too deep, there is not enough light to survive. In the deeper layers of the ocean, there are more nutrients, since there aren't any living phytoplankton to use them up.
This stratified state can turn into a mixed state, where the two layers mix together down to a certain depth, normally from being stirred around by wind. So when we measure after a rain event, if we see two layers of density, the stratified state, we know that any extra nitrogen the phytoplankton are using up is from the rain. However, if we don't see two layers near the top of the ocean, then there was probably enough wind with the rain to mix the ocean and bring deep nutrients to the surface. So any extra nitrogen in that system could be either from the deep ocean or from the rain.
Whew, what an explanation! Temperature and salinity can tell us a lot more about the ocean than what I've just mentioned, but I'll come back to that another time.
I plan to blog my experiences over the course of this cruise. After all, being an ocean modeler, I don't get out much and don't experiment at all! This will be a great chance for me to learn more about observational oceanography and how ocean data is collected from a ship. (I normally find all my data online - someone else does the hard work.) Check back for more updates as we get closer to mid-July!
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