Vol.1 No.4 Fall 2004

A message from Rogue waves challenge the Dean . . . ocean theorists Dear Friends of the Ocean, Long thought to exist only in seafarers’ “fish stories,” rogue waves on the order of I am pleased to one hundred feet tall have been detected in recent years by radars mounted on North Sea announce that we have oil platforms. Now, a global census by the European Space Agency has established these been granted an monster waves as a relatively common phenomenon. opportunity to expand In a project dubbed MaxWave, European scientists recently assembled some 30,000 our research in critical satellite radar “imagettes” to get an image of the world ocean over a period of about three areas of fisheries weeks in early 2001. Within that short period, they identified at least ten rogue waves science and oceanography and to support with heights of 25 meters or more. the training of a new cohort of graduate More than 100 ships are sunk every year, and up to 10% of those are supertankers students through the University of and container ships more than 200 meters in length. It’s impossible to investigate such Massachusetts Graduate School of accidents to the same extent as, say, airline disasters, and most have been chalked up to Marine Sciences and Technology. We “severe weather.” Rogue waves are now implicated in many of those sinkings. have, working with the Massachusetts To better understand the phenomenon of rogue waves and its implications, we talked Marine Fisheries Institute, received funds to two scientists on the faculty of the UMass to embark on an ambitious program of Marine Graduate School. Steve Pennell is fishery and related oceanographic Professor of Mathematical Sciences at research. About $300,000 will be used UMass Lowell. His related work includes to fund graduate student stipends to modeling wave-wave interactions and conduct research relevant to the program. investigating the surface expressions of The program focuses its research on internal ocean waves. Wendell Brown is scallops, groundfish, lobsters, and Professor of Oceanography and Faculty oceanographic modeling of Georges Bank Chair at SMAST/UMassD. An observational and the Gulf of Maine. oceanographer, his research has ranged over Our very successful video surveys of a number of ocean basins in the Western the spatial and size-specific abundance Hemisphere, but has focused particularly on of scallops on the continental shelf will the regional Gulf of Maine, where studies Wave modeler Steve Pennell, UMass Lowell, continue under the new program. The of the internal tide have been one of his and oceanographer Wendell Brown, UMass video surveys will be used as a baseline continuing interests. Dartmouth. to calculate the fishing power and catchability of various types of scallop UMM: How are these rogue waves similar Sea floor topography may play some role in gear, and the effect of fishing gear on to or different from the solitary waves you the generation of rogue waves, but it appears habitat and on benthic fauna. We will have studied and modeled? that near-surface currents and wind play also continue our studies of tagged Pennell: Rogue waves are similar to solitary more important roles. scallops on the continental shelf to waves in that both are isolated mounds of Brown: Some internal solitary waves, or estimate growth, migration, and mortality water rather than wave trains, both can be ISWs, result from highly nonlinear distortion rates. Finally, laboratory studies of huge, and both are described by nonlinear of much smaller internal tidal waves, which scallop biology—using specimens equations. The main difference is that rogue in turn are generated by tidal currents contributed by the commercial fleet—will waves are surface waves, whereas oceanic flowing over steep bottom topography. The be conducted to enhance stock solitary waves are internal waves. The resulting internal solitary waves can have assessment estimates. generation mechanisms also appear to be underwater amplitudes of 200 meters (in In the groundfish arena, an innovative different. Oceanic internal solitary waves the South China Sea, for example). While Fishery Management Decision Support are usually generated by tidal flow over an these ISWs are not nearly as energetic as System is already under development. underwater sill, as at the Strait of Gibraltar. Continued on page 2 Continued on page 3

UMASS MARINE is published by the University of Massachusetts Intercampus Graduate School of Marine Sciences and Technology, Office of the Dean, Brian J. Rothschild, 706 South Rodney French Blvd., New Bedford, MA 02744-1221. Information and submissions: [email protected] • 508-910-6347 Editor: Frank Smith Production: Dianne Rittmuller best time, and I wish there were more hours Dean’s Message, continued from page 1 Introducing ... in each day to fit in everything.” Operations research theory will be incorporated into the system to enable • • • formulation of decision rules that take into account multiple species interactions. We Students Adrienne Pappal has always known are also developing an acousto-optic fish It was more than 20 years ago that what she wanted to do. “I never dreamed assessment array for Georges Bank. The Deborah Cobb finished her bachelor’s degree to be an astronaut or superstar. I still keep array will be used to enumerate size and in Biology at East Carolina University. She the pictures from childhood that I drew of species-specific fish abundance on the had already started graduate school when myself in a vast Crayola sea. There is Bank. Fishing-gear engineering studies love intervened. She got married, moved something so compelling about that great will modify trawls to improve their to New England, and started a family. As expanse of water.” selectivity to separate target and non- Deborah puts it, “I put graduate school on Her continuing fascination with the target species to minimize waste and hold for a few years; a few years turned ocean eventually led Adrienne to enroll at reduce unwanted bycatch. out to be a couple of decades.” the University of New Hampshire (UNH) in The lobster fishery will be the focus In 2002, with one child in a doctoral 1997 to study Marine and Freshwater of a three-part research effort. Lobster Biology. “As an undergraduate,” she says, stock assessment will be enhanced by “I jumped at any opportunity to expand my calibrating ventless traps using scuba exposure to the field of marine science.” observation, and migrations will be Such opportunities appeared studied to better identify stock structure. first in the form of summer field At left, Deborah Cobb. The lobster disease problem will also be marine science programs at the Below: Deborah immersed in defined and evaluated, and studies of Shoals Marine Lab, jointly operated her work. Buzzards Bay water will help determine by UNH and Cornell University. the role of water chemistry in declines in “These were my first real field lobster abundance. experiences,” says Adrienne, “and Finally, the new program will also I was hooked.” bolster our Georges Bank/Gulf of Maine From that point, Adrienne oceanographic modeling research. The moved into teaching, sharing her Georges Bank/Gulf of Maine region is the program, one in enthusiasm for marine science breadbasket for coastal New England, and college, one in with fellow college students as we are bringing more and more model high school, and teaching assistant, with the public products into near real time. one in middle at the NH Seacoast Science Stay tuned to the UMass Marine school, Deborah Center, and with school children newsletter and to our website picked up where aboard the NH Sea Grant Floating www.umassmarine.net to follow the she left off. While Lab, a series of mini-research progress of these exciting research still teaching part- cruises, whereon the children efforts. time at Concord become the researchers. Academy, she enrolled part-time in the Adrienne’s final semester as an - Brian Rothschild, Dean UMass Marine Graduate School on the undergraduate was spent in New Zealand Boston campus, studying under Professor through the EcoQuest program, where she Robert Chen. studied marine sciences and conducted professor so I can teach others about the Deborah’s thesis research centers on independent research. “There, I was wonders of the ocean. If I can touch one monitoring bacterial levels in the Pine Tree challenged in every way,” she reports, “from life to get involved and excited about the Brook in Milton before, during, and after a scaling mountains to spending hours sorting ocean, then I’ll have reached my goal.” § water quality improvement project by the samples. But the rewards were great.” Neponset River Watershed Association. The At SMAST, Adrienne is pursuing her Adrienne Pappal collects samples on the Pine Tree Brook borders Milton High School, master’s degree in Living Marine Resources shore of Mt. Hope Bay. a convenience for the school’s Science and Management through the Environmental Science students who are UMass Intercampus Marine Graduate involved in Deborah’s sample collection, School. With advisor Dan MacDonald, she processing, and data interpretation. is researching the community structure of “Ultimately, I would like people to be fishes in varied intertidal habitats. more educated about coastal processes and “I am particularly interested in the their effects upon our quality of life,” distribution patterns of juvenile winter Deborah says. “Hopefully, with education, flounder, as this species is in decline in New change will come and our coastal areas will England estuaries. I hope to continue my start to rebound.” research this fall with laboratory study of A part-time student for her first three habitat preferences of juvenile winter semesters at UMass, Deborah will be a flounder.” fulltime student this fall and part of the Characteristically, Adrienne also has Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership plans for the longer term. “I think the most (WISP) at the Dedham Middle School. “The important goal of studying the ocean is important thing is that I finally made it back conservation and the spread of knowledge,” to grad school,” she says. “I am having the she says. “I hope one day to become a Page 2 Rogue Waves, continued from page 1 the confirmation that rogue waves are generation. So a rogue wave forecasting the 30m surface rogue waves, they can relatively common, scientists' statistics center would probably be running data- compromise submarine stabilty and may predicted that such large deviations from assimilation ocean models with explicit have led to the sinking, implosion and loss the surrounding sea state should occur only surface wave-generation physics. They of more than one U.S. submarine. once every 10,000 years. would issue warnings with probabilities of UMM: Could a geographical concentration Brown: These probabilities of occurrence encountering a rogue wave—akin to what of sinkings, as is claimed for the Bermuda (like those that predict the 100-year storm, tornado forecasters do. § Triangle, be related to the prevalence of for example) are based on observation statistics. But with very few realizations— rogue waves? Scramble for eggs, continued from page 4 Pennell: I don’t know about the Bermuda in other words, very few observations of Triangle, but yes, I would certainly think so extreme storms—the uncertainties in the out of Gloucester and Newburyport. This in general. Rogue waves seem to be more statistics are large. season, samples will be collected through prevalent in regions where wind-generated UMM: What kind of assumptions must have these same sources, but also through surface waves meet a current running in the been embedded in those statistics? collaboration with Canadian trawl surveys and independent Cape Cod hook fishermen. The goal is to collect samples throughout “The picture [at left] was taken on the oil freighter Esso Languedoc outside the coast of Durban (1980). The man the study area over the course of the entire who took it, Philippe Lijour, estimated the mean wave spawning season, which runs approximately height when this occurred to be about 5-10 m. The mast from October to May. on the starboard side is 25 m above the mean sea level. Measuring fecundity and egg size has The wave approached from behind and broke over deck, traditionally been done by counting and but caused only minor damage.” www.math.uio.no/ measuring one egg at a time under a ~karstent/waves/index_en.html, 14 Sept. 2004 dissecting microscope, making the process time-consuming and cumbersome. This may Brown: That the background environment explain the dearth of published fecundity is not changing in any basic way so that data for northwest Atlantic cod. All samples the statistical estimators (in this case, the in the current study will be analyzed using probability of encountering a rogue wave) digital imaging software, which is faster and can be considered stationary. However, we more accurate than traditional methods, and know that there is long-term climate can still be accomplished quite variability: El Nino, the North Atlantic inexpensively. opposite direction (for example, off the east Oscillation, global warming. So, I would be It is the aim of this research not only to coast of South Africa and in the North skeptical of statistics based on a stationarity. Atlantic). The effect of this wave/current develop fecundity data, but also to simplify interaction is analogous to what happens Pennell: As Wendell says, there was an laboratory methods while maintaining the when a wave hits a solid wall: the wave assumption of stationarity, and it was quality of the data. It is hoped that runs up the wall, leading to a substantial assumed that the distribution of wave accomplishing this latter goal will lead to increase in wave height. Certainly an heights was Gaussian, or, as a social more frequent fecundity studies on Atlantic increased risk of rogue waves would scientist might say: distributed on a bell cod and other fisheries species, providing correlate with an increased risk of ships curve. That would make a wave height managers with better materials for building sinking. several standard deviations away from the sustainable fisheries in the Northeast. § mean extremely unlikely, and rogue wave UMM: From your work, can you say heights are certainly several standard anything about the likely persistence of such deviations above the mean. waves? For example, in 2001 two cruise UMM: The MaxWave Project has inspired University of ships — the Bremen and the Caledonian Star Massachusetts — were hit by 30-meter waves in the same follow-up research on ship design and on the geographical distribution of rogue waves Amherst • Boston • Dartmouth week at locations less than 1000 km apart. Lowell • Worcester Any chance they were hit by the same over the longer term. The latter project INTERCAMPUS GRADUATE SCHOOL OF wave? seeks insight into the generation mechanisms of rogue waves; could it lead MARINE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY Brown: I strongly doubt it. to a start at predicting rogue waves? Granting M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in seven UMM: Granted, that would require a rogue Pennell: Modelers will have a field day with areas: wave traveling on the order of 10 kilometers the study of rogue waves. Preliminary • Analysis and Modeling of Marine and per hour, but the alternative would be two numerical studies indicate that several model Atmospheric Systems rogue waves in the same ocean basin in the nonlinear wave equations can give rise to • Coastal Systems Science same week. solutions that look like rogue waves. Once • Integrated Coastal Management Pennell: I can't say whether the Bremen and we have more data and a better physical • Living Marine Resources Science and the Caledonian Star were hit by the same understanding of rogue waves, we can find Management • Marine Biogeochemical Cycles and wave, but it wouldn't surprise me if rogue out which, if any, of these nonlinear wave Environmental Change waves were found to be long-lived. Solitary equations is a good model. • Marine Observation Technologies wave solutions of many nonlinear wave Brown: Such highly nonlinear processes are • The Ocean and Human Health equations turn out to be remarkably stable. wildly difficult to predict. However, I suspect UMM: The European Space Agency, sponsor the rogue waves arise out of particular of the MaxWave project, says that prior to oceanic conditions that are favorable to their http://www.umassmarine.net Page 3 Non Profit Org. US Postage Paid Office of the Dean, Brian J. 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Norwegian waters; however, cod fecundity is known to vary between stocks over a relatively small spatial scale, UMass Researchers so these figures would be inaccurate for northwest Atlantic fish. Last year, in the only recent cod fecundity study of Scramble for Eggs northwest Atlantic stocks, Canadian researchers showed In an ongoing study at UMass Amherst, researchers that cod fecundity in adjacent management areas varied are working to estimate relative fecundity, or the number by as much as 50% within the same spawning season. of eggs produced per gram of body weight, of Atlantic In the present study, funded by the Cooperative Marine cod in the Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine regions. Education and Research Program (CMER), ovary samples Fecundity information is used along with estimates of from developing female cod have been collected by spawning stock biomass of egg-producing National Marine females to predict how many eggs the stock Fisheries Service will produce as a whole. This information is personnel aboard then used to predict how many adult fish can NOAA research be expected to grow from these eggs. vessels out of One might assume that such basic life Woods Hole, and history information on a species as important by research as cod would be abundant. On the contrary, assistant Nikolai according to Prof. Francis Juanes, principal Klibansky aboard investigator for the project, little current commercial fishing fecundity information exists for Georges Bank vessels participating in cod and none exists for Gulf of Maine stocks. state-run trawl surveys In fact, says Juanes, “Other than an outdated Continued inside, page 3 [1880] estimate for Gulf of Maine cod, which was based on six individuals, no published fecundity estimate exists for any of the cod Graduate student stocks from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to Nikolai Klibansky and a Georges Bank until last year.” microscopic view of More recent estimates do exist for his cod eggs. fecundity of cod in the North Sea and Arcto-