Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean ANNUAL REPORT April 2014 - March 2015 — 1 — Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean University of Washington 3737 Brooklyn Ave NE Seattle, WA 98195-5672 206.543.5216 [email protected] jisao.washington.edu Layout and Design - Jed Thompson, JISAO CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 5 Science Highlights .............................................................................................................................7 Education and Outreach .................................................................................................................13 Financial Management and Administration ...............................................................................17 CLIMATE RESEARCH AND IMPACTS ..........................................................................21 ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY ................................................................................. 41 MARINE ECOSYSTEMS .................................................................................................55 OCEAN AND COASTAL OBSERVATIONS ................................................................ 129 PROTECTION AND RESTORATION OF MARINE RESOURCES ..........................145 SEAFLOOR PROCESSES .............................................................................................159 TSUNAMI OBSERVATIONS AND MODELING ........................................................169 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................. 179 Appendix 1: Senior Fellows and Council Members ................................................................. 180 Appendix 2: Professional Awards, Funded Events, and Visitors ............................................ 181 Appendix 3: New Cooperative Agreement Awards ................................................................. 183 Appendix 4: Non-NOAA Cooperative Agreement Projects ................................................... 186 Appendix 5: Graduate Students ................................................................................................. 188 Appendix 6: Personnel Count ..................................................................................................... 189 Appendix 7: Postdoctoral Research Associates ....................................................................... 190 Appendix 8: Publications Count .................................................................................................. 191 Appendix 9: Publications, April 2014 - March 2015 ................................................................ 192 Appendix 10: Acronyms ................................................................................................................202 — 3 — Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean 2014 — 2015 Annual Report — 4 — EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean 2014 — 2015 Annual Report INTRODUCTION he Joint Institute for the Study of the The extensive research conducted at JISAO is Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) promotes summarized in the Science Highlights section, collaborative research between the University followed by a summary of the Education and Tof Washington (UW) and the National Oceanic Outreach program activities of the past year and an and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). JISAO update on financial and business operations. Beyond and NOAA researchers represent a broad range of this section are individual progress summaries for scientific expertise, and projects are organized under each project funded by the NOAA Cooperative seven major research themes: Agreement in the past year, as well as appendices with additional information as requested by the NOAA 1. Climate research and impacts Performance Reporting guidance. 2. Environmental chemistry 3. Marine ecosystems 4. Ocean and coastal observations 5. Protection and restoration of marine resources 6. Seafloor processes 7. Tsunami observations and modeling JISAO, a unit within the UW College of the Environment, works with a number of departments throughout the campus, including Atmospheric Sciences, Oceanography, Fisheries, Earth and Space Sciences, the Applied Physics Laboratory, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Evans School of Public Affairs, Friday Harbor Laboratories, and the Undergraduate Research Program, among others. A large number of JISAO employees work at the NOAA laboratories in Seattle, including the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), Alaska Fisheries Science Center (AFSC) and Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC). The Institute’s Education and Outreach (E&O) effort makes important contributions in promoting environmental literacy at all levels of society, mentoring the next generation of scientists and reaching out to underrepresented communities. — 6 — Executive Summary SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS CLIMATE RESEARCH AND IMPACTS The record of sea level pressure at Darwin, Austrialia statistical significance by the standard statistical provides a uniquely long, high quality record of techniques, even though very few of them yield the behavior of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation trends that are representative of the full time series. (ENSO) phenomenon. Andrew Chiodi of JISAO This work provides an important cautionary tale. and Ed Harrison of NOAA/PMEL have shown There are many other key aspects of the earth’s that the ~150yr trend in Darwin is not statistically climate and ecology for which there is great interest different from zero, and that its early period behavior in determining long-term trends, but for which resembles that seen over recent decades. This the only records are much shorter than 150 years. suggests that ENSO variability has not fundamentally The Darwin record illustrates that the long-term changed over the time of rapid atmospheric CO2 trajectory of a system from statistics derived from increase. When viewed over shorter (for example multi-decadal records is fraught with difficulty when 10-50 year long) subsegments, however, the Darwin large amounts of inter-annual (or longer timescale) record exhibits a wide range of behavior, with large variability is present. In other words, a wide range of variations in event-frequency and (apparent) trend. conclusions about trends are possible regardless of the In fact, many of the sub-segment trends reach true long-term behavior of the system. Darwin Seasonal Mean Sea Level Pressure Anomaly Darwin seasonal sea level pressure anomaly (black curve) with the best-fit trend over the full (136yr) record (green line). Also shown are examples of best-fit trends over various decadal to multi-decadal sub-segments; trends over the last 10, 20 and 30 years are shown in blue; the last 40 and 50 years in red, and a 50yr interval ending in 1998 is shown with a red dashed line. — 7 — Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean 2014 — 2015 Annual Report ENVIRONMENTAL CHEMISTRY The world’s oceans are acidifying due to increasing uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But specifying the changes that are occurring is challenging, especially in coastal zones that are subject to substantial and incompletely understood natural variations. Hence there is an urgent need for inexpensive and robust pH sensors to allow for complete and cost-effective monitoring. This issue was recognized by the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, which established a $2 million competition to advance ocean pH sensing technology. JISAO chemist Remy Okazaki and Richard Feely of NOAA/PMEL are involved in this effort in terms of evaluating the various types of instrumentation that have been submitted for this competition. Essentially, they are providing the actual pH from laboratory grade instrumentation against which the values from these new sensors are compared. The announcement of the winner(s) of this competition is expected in July 2015. Vibrant programs of ocean acidification research are being conducted at NOAA/PMEL and the UW, and these programs look forward to the additional data that will become possible through the Remy Okazaki (left) and Team Durafet representative and their pH technology development supported by this XPRIZE sensor during trials. competition. — 8 — Executive Summary MARINE ECOSYSTEMS JISAO is very pleased to have become involved in a Innovative Technology for Arctic Exploration (ITAE) major way with ongoing efforts towards describing program under the leadership of Calvin Mordy of the distribution of marine mammals and their prey JISAO. This program has entered an agreement with resources in the Arctic. Among a variety of studies, Saildrone Inc. to adapt autonomous wind-powered the passage of baleen whales from the Bering Sea vehicles to carry scientific payloads. Two Saildrones into the Chukchi Sea is being studied in the Arctic were deployed in April 2015 with meteorological Whale Ecology Study (ARCWEST) project featuring and oceanographic sensors and have traveled more scientists from JISAO, NOAA and the Woods Hole than 2,000 miles and collected over 40 million Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Much of measurements as of early June. Current engineering the data for the ARCWEST project, in particular efforts are focusing on developing the capability the acoustic data, have been freely available on the of additional sensors into the Saildrone platform. Distributed Biological Observatory (DBO) website.