APL-UW - Projects

Project	Investigator(s)	Sponsor(s)

A Physically-Based Technique for Estimating the Friction Velocity and Direction at the Ocean Surface using Scatterometer Measurements The main objective of this effort is to develop a scheme for obtaining direct, physically-based estimates of the friction velocity vector at the ocean surface from space-borne scatterometer measurements, and to apply this technique under high wind conditions.	Ellen Lettvin	NASA-JPL

Acoustic Environment of Haro Strait: Preliminary Propagation Modeling and Data Analysis This analysis of the acoustic environments of the southern resident killer whales in Haro Strait of Puget Sound combines field measurements and acoustic propagation modeling for the frequency range 1-10 kHz.	Chris Jones Mike Wolfson	NOAA

Acoustic Remote Sensing of Hydrothermal Flow High-frequency acoustic remote sensing offers an attractive method of detecting and probing scales of hydrothermal flow that are unattainable by point sampling methods. Two new methods are: 1) scintillation thermography to detect and characterize diffuse flow fields; and 2) plume particulate scattering to estimate flow velocity and particulate concentrations in the high temperature vent plumes.	Chris Jones Darrell Jackson

Adriatic Circulation Experiment: Mesoscale Dynamics and Response to Strong Atmospheric Forcing The Adriatic Sea provides a unique laboratory in which oceanographers can study the ocean's response to atmospheric forcing at small (10 km) lateral scales and investigate the processes that communicate atmospheric forcing events (seasonal winds and freshwater flows) to the ocean interior.	Craig Lee	ONR

Air-Sea Coupling in the California Current Region This study seeks 1) a seasonal and interannual description of the CCS via derived satellite products, including fluxes, 2) the oceanic response to atmospheric forcing, focusing on the contribution of 25-km scale variability to the flux fields as revealed by satellite observations, and 3) the atmospheric response to the surface expression of the CCS.	Kathie Kelly Kate Edwards Ralph Foster Ellen Lettvin	NASA

ALOHA Mooring The ALOHA/MARS mooring sensor network combines adaptive sampling methods with a moored deep-ocean sensor network.	Bruce Howe	NSF

An Observational Array for High-resolution, Year-round Measurement of Volume, Freshwater and Ice Flux Variability in Davis Strait A coordinated domestic and international effort quantifies the variability of fluxes connecting the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and seeks to understand the role played by the Arctic and sub-Arctic in steering decadal scale climate variability; we will make year-round measurements of volume, liquid freshwater, and ice fluxes across Davis Strait.	Craig Lee	NSF

Analysis and Modeling of Microwave Scatterometry Data	Bill Plant	ONR

Analysis of the Vema Fracture Zone Exploratory Measurements (VEX) Datasets The purpose of this project is to analyze the observations collected during the field phase of the Vema Fracture Zone (VFZ) Exploratory (VEX) Measurement Program in 2001-2003. The goal is to complete quantification of the transport of deep and bottom waters through the VFZ and of abyssal mixing rates in the VFZ.	Sabine Mecking	NSF

Antisubmarine Warfare Exercise The autonomous undersea vehicle Seaglider can serve as a persistent, long-range, distributed undersea sensor in antisubmarine warfare operation scenarios, providing environmental sampling automation, precision, and frequency valuable to the fleet.	Marc Stewart	ONR

Asian Sea International Acoustics Experiment (ASIAEX) The goals of ASIAEX program in the East China Sea were to identify and elucidate properties of shallow-water boundaries governing propagation and reverberation, such as sediment inhomogeniety, sediment roughness, and sea surface roughness, and to establish a geoacoustic description of the East China Sea seabed.	Peter Dahl	ONR

Assessing the Effects of Submesoscale Ocean Parameterizations (AESOP) The AESOP Departmental Research Initiative (DRI) seeks to create an intellectual framework for assessing the impact of submesoscale ocean parameterizations on synoptic predictions of the ocean state using numerical models. The focus of this effort is to develop metrics and methods to assess existing parameterizations and consequent improvements, rather than to develop new parameterizations.	Mike Gregg	ONR

Assessing the Long-term Contribution of Landfast Ice to the Arctic Freshwater Budget The project analyzes the basin-wide changes in landfast ice cover, including sea ice growth/melt, brine flux, and freshwater storage. The project expects to learn about long-term variability of landfast ice under different arctic environmental conditions.	Yanling Yu Harry Stern	NSF

Automated Verification of Mesoscale Forecasts using Image Processing Techniques A technique to rapidly assess mesoscale numerical forecasts is being expanded to assess amplitude, displacement, distortion and rotation errors. We are also adapting rapid image motion processing algorithms from the motion picture industry to develop a highly efficient, automated verification system.	David Jones Scott Sandgathe	ONR

Blue Water Acoustics Research The Blue Water Acoustics Research group is a multidisciplinary team of investigators committed to solving the fundamental physical problems of oceanic acoustic propagation across ocean basins. Our inquiry is focused to maximize application to tactical and environmental monitoring systems. Includes the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory (NPAL) and the Long-range Ocean Acoustic Propagation Experiment (LOAPEX).	Jim Mercer Bruce Howe Rex Andrew Frank Henyey Mike Wolfson	ONR

Boater Information System This web portal gives boaters new, real-time, animated weather and oceanographic products to plan their trips on Puget Sound waterways.	David Jones Janet Olsonbaker	Washington Seagrant

CEMOS - Cognitive Engineering of MetOc Systems Meteorologists and oceanographers use their scientific expertise to help computer scientists and software engineers design and build systems for users including the US Navy to carry out missions of national significance. The intersection of Operational MetOc with the cognitive engineering of products which fit users' real needs makes the Cognitive Engineering of MetOc Systems or CEMOS group unique.	David Jones

Changing Sea Ice and the Bering Sea Ecosystem Part of the BEST (Bering Sea Ecosystem Study) Project, this study will use high-resolution modeling of Bering Sea circulation to understand past change in the eastern Bering climate and ecosystem and to predict the timing and scope of future change.	Jinlun Zhang Rebecca Woodgate	NSF

Circulation in the Freshwater Switchyard of the Arctic Ocean This program studies freshwater circulation (sea ice + upper ocean) in the �switchyard� between Ellesmere Island and the North Pole. This region is historically very poorly sampled, and it lies upstream of North Atlantic deepwater convection sites.	Mike Steele	NSF

COHerent STructures in Rivers and Estuaries eXperiment The experiment is a four-year collaborative project that couples state-of-the-art remote sensing and in situ measurements with advanced numerical modeling to characterize coherent structures in river and estuarine flows.	Andy Jessup	ONR

DRI: Capturing Uncertainty DRI Uncertainty seeks to characterize and represent the uncertainty of the environmental features that affect active acoustic detection of submarines.	Marc Stewart	ONR

Dual frequency IDentification SONar (DIDSON) The DIDSON represents a new class in identification sonar; the acoustic lens sonar gives near video quality images for inspection and identification of objects underwater. It is a surrogate for optical systems in turbid water.	Gary Harkins

Dynamics and Thermodynamics of the North Pacific Part of the heat transported poleward from the tropics by the ocean is stored near the energetic western boundary currents. These storage reservoirs provide a source of interannual-to-decadal climate fluctuations through their impact on the ocean-to-atmosphere heat fluxes.	Kathie Kelly	NASA NSF

Environmental Visualization Meteorologists, oceanographers, computer scientists, and psychologists study the human-to-computer interaction of Navy METOC forecasting, and are developing workflow tools for key decision makers and warfare commanders.	David Jones J. Ballas, NRL Bob Miyamoto	ONR

Fluxes, Air-Sea Interaction, and Remote Sensing (FAIRS) Experiment The transfer of momentum, heat, and gas across the air-sea boundary is characterized and quantified by measuring the underlying physical mechanisms with remote sensing instruments.	Andy Jessup	ONR

Forecasting the condition of arctic sea ice on daily to seasonal time scales The extent of arctic sea ice during the summer has declined to near-record minima during the last several summers. Can we predict future minima? Our weekly to seasonal forecasts provided by the National/Naval Ice Center help residents and navigators in the Arctic make better decisions regarding sea ice.	Ignatius Rigor	NOAA

Glider Monitoring, Piloting, and Communications System APL-UW is leading a consortium of glider developers in advanced research and development to improve underwater glider systems for environmental characterizations during naval operation. Improvements include a common command control and display/transfer interface for use across all existing glider designs—the GLMPC system.	Craig Lee David Jones	ONR

Global Investigations of Low Winds and Their Variability Results of this project will include a climatology of the sub-grid scale spatial variability of the wind and an improved procedure for obtaining low wind speeds from QuikSCAT satellite data.	Bill Plant	NASA-JPL

Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment, Nearfield Profiling: Full-depth, Tide-beam Tracking HOME is dedicated to the profound challenge of understanding one of the ocean's most important physical processes, turbulent mixing. Mixing does not occur uniformly over the entire ocean, but is concentrated in the vicinity of rough topography.	Tom Sanford Craig Lee Eric Kunze	ONR

Hawaii Ocean Mixing Experiment, Nearfield Profiling: Generation, Propagation, and Dissipation of the Internal Tide in the Kauai Channel The Hawaii Ocean-Mixing Experiment was designed to investigate the loss of energy from the surface tide as it flows over the Hawaiian Ridge and how that energy produces internal waves and turbulent dissipation.	Mike Gregg Jack Miller

Heat Transport and Storage in the North Atlantic Interannual-to-decadal variations in the poleward transport of heat in the North Atlantic are a candidate mechanism for inducing climate variations. Heat from the tropical ocean is carried rapidly northward by western boundary currents to the mid-latitudes. Much of the upper ocean's heat is lost to the atmosphere here.	Kathie Kelly	NSF

High Latitude Dynamics The program's research goals are to 1) understand the physics of the high-latitude oceans, including their circulation, 2) illuminate the role of the polar oceans in climate, 3) identify the links between physical mechanisms and the biology and chemistry of the high-latitude marine environment, and 4 )achieve a mechanistic understanding of the variability of cold oceans and lakes.	Knut Aagaard Rebecca Woodgate	NSF ONR NOAA MMS

Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program The program seeks to determine the sources of low dissolved oxygen in Hood Canal and the effect on marine life. The program will work with local state, federal, and tribal government policy makers to evaluate potential corrective actions that will restore and maintain a level of dissolved oxygen that will reduce stress on marine life.	Jan Newton	NAVSEA

HSMETOC HS:METOC projects seek to improve the forecaster's ability to accurately predict and efficiently convey weather information to decision makers. Researchers study workflow, quantitative mental models, complex visualization, and intelligent agents.	David Jones	ONR

Human and Machine Classification of Active Sonar Echoes We are evaluating the ability of trained sonar operators to discriminate targets from clutter using appropriate datasets for mid-frequency active and impulsive source sonar systems.	Jim Pitton	ONR

Hurricane Lagrangian Floats Lagrangian floats, designed to follow the water parcel that surrounds them, are deployed by aircraft ahead of hurricanes. As the hurricane passes they sample the evolving surface mixed layer and then surface to telemeter their data by satellite to scientists.	Eric D'Asaro	NSF ONR

Impact of Scatterometer Winds in the North Pacific This research seeks to evaluate the accuracy of scatterometer winds, mapped wind fields, and wind products derived from the maps, and to evaluate ocean simulations forced by the winds and by flux fields derived from the winds.	Kathie Kelly	NASA

Influence of the Mendeleev Ridge and the Chukchi Borderland on the Large-scale Circulation of the Arctic Ocean Parts of the topographically steered Arctic Ocean boundary current waters are diverted away from the continental margin, generally along topographic ridges. The most complex obstacle the boundary current encounters is the Mendeleev Ridge/Chukchi Borderland complex, north of the Pacific entrance to the Arctic.	Rebecca Woodgate Knut Aagaard	NSF

Interactions of Dynamics and Thermodynamics Along the Boundaries of the NPAC Gyre A numerical model and observations of sea surface height from the TOPEX/Poseidon radar altimeter and sea surface temperature is used to examine ocean dynamics and thermodynamics along the boundaries of the subtropical gyre in the North Pacific.	Kathie Kelly	NASA NSF

International Arctic Buoy Programme The participants of the IABP work together to maintain a network of drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean to provide meteorological and oceanographic data for real-time operational requirements and research purposes including support to the World Climate Research Programme and the World Weather Watch Programme.	Ignatius Rigor	NASA NSF NOAA ONR U.S. Coast Guard

Ionian Sea Rainfall Experiment The Ionian Sea Rainfall Experiment will attempt to link radar, rain gauge, and underwater ambient sound measurements of rain to show that such measurements will improve our ability to understand satellite measurements of rainfall over the oceans.	Jeff Nystuen	NSF

Life of Sea Ice: Art Institute of Seattle Video for APL-UW Educational Outreach Students from the Art Institute of Seattle joined APL-UW polar scientists in Barrow, Alaska, to document experiments on the land-fast ice. AIS created a video, The Life of Sea Ice, for APL-UW educational outreach.	Christopher Krembs Mike Steele Janet Olsonbaker	APL-UW Art Institute of Seattle

Mixed Layer Boundary Conditions of Chlorofluorocarbons in the North Pacific The purpose of this research is to perform a series of model experiments with the Hallberg Isopycnal Model (HIM) to investigate 1.) mixed layer boundary conditions of CFCs in the North Pacific Ocean and 2.) the implications of possible winter-time undersaturations on the interpretation of CFC-derived ages distributions and anthropogenic carbon estimates in the ocean interior.	Sabine Mecking	NOAA

Modeling the Cycle and Source Apportionment of Volatile Organic Compounds in Lakes and Rivers A set of models to predict how changes in sources and environmental conditions will affect surface water concentrations of volatile organic compounds are being developed to aid regulatory decision makers.	Bill Asher	USGS

Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI): Statistical and Cognitive Approaches to Visualizing Uncertainty The initiative will develop methods to evaluate uncertainty of mesoscale meteorological model prediction; improve statistical methods for dealing with uncertainty; understand how forecasters incorporate uncertainty in their forecasts; and develop methods to integrate and visualize multisource information from model output, observations, and expert knowledge.	David Jones	ONR

NANOOS: Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems This Pacific Northwest regional association is a partnership of information producers and users allied to manage coastal ocean observing systems for the benefit of stakeholders and the public. Partners are committed to to sharing data openly and working toward common data management standards.	Jan Newton David Martin

Naval Underwater Warfare Technology	Marc Stewart	ONR

Nearshore Canyon Experiment Oceanographer Jim Thomson is collaborating with researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to study low-frequency surface waves and understand how submarine canyons affect the propagation and evolution of waves along the coast.	Jim Thomson	ONR NSF

NEPTUNE (NorthEast Pacific Time-integrated Undersea Networked Experiments): Development of a Power System for Cabled Ocean Observatories The NEPTUNE project is a linked array of undersea observatories on the Juan de Fuca plate in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. Fiber-optic power cable will connect land-based scientists, students, decision makers, and the public to distributed sensors above, on, and beneath the seafloor.	Bruce Howe

Non Viral Gene Medicine for Hemophilia Non viral gene transfer offers a safer alternative to viral gene delivery in the treatment of hemophilia.	Carol Miao Andrew Brayman

North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory The objectives of the NPAL program are to understand the basic physics of low-frequency, long-range, broadband propagation, the effects of environmental variability on signal stability and coherence, and the fundamental limits to signal processing at long-range imposed by ocean processes.	Bob Spindel Jim Mercer Bruce Howe Rex Andrew Brian Dushaw	ONR

North Pole Environmental Observatory The observatory is staffed by an international research team that establishes a camp at the North Pole each spring to take the pulse of the Arctic Ocean and learn how the world's northernmost sea helps regulate global climate.	Jamie Morison Knut Aagaard Andy Heiberg Dick Moritz Mike Steele	NSF

Physical and Optical Structures of the Upper Ocean of the Japan/East Sea This study seeks to understand the processes that control physical and bio-optical variability in the Japan/East Sea including the upper ocean response to strong wintertime atmospheric forcing; watermass formation, subduction and spreading; dynamics of the subpolar front; and to characterize cross-front and cross-shelf bio-optical transitions.	Craig Lee	ONR

Polar Science Center Hydrographic Climatology A gridded ocean climatology has been created that merges the 1998 version of the World Ocean Atlas with the regional Arctic Ocean Atlas. The result is a global climatology for temperature and salinity including a good description of the Arctic Ocean and its environs.	Mike Steele	NSF ONR NASA

Projections of an Ice-Diminished Arctic Ocean The project is examining the historical evolution of the arctic ice-ocean system to understand the large-scale changes that have occurred in sea ice and the upper Arctic Ocean, and projecting a diminished arctic sea-ice cover under multiple warming scenarios to understand key linkages among atmospheric forcing, sea-ice processes, and oceanic processes in an ice-diminished Arctic Ocean and the adjacent seas.	Jinlun Zhang Drew Rothrock Mike Steele	NSF

RADARSAT Geophysical Processor System at the Polar Science Center	Ron Lindsay Harry Stern Yanling Yu Drew Rothrock	NASA

Regional Scale Nodes (RSN) The University of Washington's Regional Scale Nodes or RSN of the NSF OOI will extend continuous high-bandwidth (tens of Gigabits/second) and power (tens of kilowatts) to a network of instruments widely distributed across, above, and below the seafloor in the northeast Pacific Ocean.	Gary Harkins Clark Bodyfelt Mike Harrington Bruce Howe	NSF

Repeat Hydrography Data from the U.S. CLIVAR/CO2 Repeat Hydrography cruises have been used for investigation of climate variability in the North Pacific Ocean based on oxygen measurements. In addition funding is being sought to collect SF6 and CFC measurements on an UW student cruise that will repeat part of the CLIVAR/CO2 and WOCE P16N cruise tracks along 152W.	Sabine Mecking	NOAA NSF

Scientific Ice Expeditions (SCICEX) Scientists were invited to travel aboard U.S. Navy submarines on missions across the Arctic Basin to collect environmental data. The Scientific Ice Expeditions included six arctic cruises over five years.	Drew Rothrock Jamie Morison Mike Steele	NSF ONR

Seaglider: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Seaglider is the result of a collaborative effort between APL-UW and the UW School of Oceanography. These small, free-swimming vehicles can gather environmental data from the ocean for months at a time and transmit it to shore in near-real time via satellite data telemetry.	Russ Light Craig Lee Marc Stewart	ONR

Seasonal and Interannual Variability of the Alaska Coastal Current: Long-term, Three-dimensional Observations Using a Telemetering Autonomous Vehicle The AUV Seaglider is used to study the seasonal and interannual variability in ACC freshwater content and transport, the ACC's role in governing springtime mixed layer evolution over the shelf, the processes controlling temporal and spatial variability in the spring bloom, and the processes that may produce onshore nutrient flux.	Craig Lee	NSF NOAA ONR

Sediment Acoustics Experiment 2004 (SAX04) The overall objective of SAX04 is to better understand the acoustic detection at low grazing angles of objects, such as mines, buried in sandy marine sediments.	Eric Thorsos Kevin Williams DJ Tang	ONR

Shelf-Basin Interaction Mooring Cruise 2003 The Shelf-Basin-Interaction program of NSF investigates the processes of transfer and interaction between the ocean shelves, slopes, and deep basins. Here the focus region is the shelf/slope/basin region of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic.	Rebecca Woodgate Knut Aagaard	NSF

Skin and Bulk Sea Surface Temperature Validation Program There is a growing consensus that sea surface temperature (SST) products derived from satellite-based infrared (IR) sensors should include ocean skin temperature. To validate satellite-based measurements of skin temperature, widespread, in situ data are required.	Andy Jessup	NASA NOPP NOAA

Sonar Simulation Tooklit (SST) The Sonar Simulation Toolset is a computer program that produces simulated sonar signals, enabling users to build an artificial ocean that sounds like a real ocean.	Bob Goddard	ONR

SORFED: Sound Recording for Education Underwater hydrophones listen to natural and anthropogenic sounds and a web camera stationed several feet above the surface at the hydrophone's location allows users to look for interesting activities that have noise associated with them.	Kevin Williams Russ Light Tim Wen	APL-UW Internal Funds

Study of Environmental Arctic Change SEARCH is an interagency effort to understand the nature, extent, and future development of the system-scale change presently seen in the Arctic. These changes are occuring across terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric, and human systems.	Jamie Morison Dick Moritz	NSF

Study of Mucopolysaccharides in Arctic Sea Ice The liquid brine filled space in sea ice is where processes of crystal growth and microbial life interact in a sensitive thermodynamical equilibrium between solid matter, liquid, and solutes. Some organisms are capable of manipulating this equilibrium to their ecological advantage with detectable changes of the sea ice micro- and macro- physical properties.	Christopher Krembs	NSF

Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA)	Dick Moritz	NSF ONR

Temporal and Spatial Nature of Regime Shifts Impacts Stellar Sea Lions	Don Percival	NOAA

Tidal Flats Under an ONR-sponsored Department Research Initiative researchers are studying thermal signatures of inter-tidal sediments. The goal is to understand how sediment properties feedback on morphology and circulation, and the extent to which such properties can be sensed remotely.	Jim Thomson	ONR

Transport and Divergence of Carbon, Oxygen and Nutrients in the Atlantic Ocean This project seeks to provide data-based estimates of the transport and divergence of carbon, oxygen and nutrients in the Atlantic Ocean using a multi-box inverse model as well as a tracer age based approach. The goal is to evaluate the magnitude and location of oceanic uptake/outgassing of CO2 as well as the size of the biological carbon pump.	Sabine Mecking	NSF

Wave Dissipation and the Distribution of Breaking Crests The energy dissipation of breaking waves is quantified using simultaneous remote and in situ measurements.	Andy Jessup Jim Thomson	NSF ONR

Wavelet-based Statistical Analysis of Multiscale Geophysical Data Wavelets re-express data collected over a time span or spatial region such that variations over temporal/spatial scales are summarized in wavelet coefficients. Individual coefficients depend upon both a scale and a temporal/spatial location, so wavelets are ideal for analyzing geo-systems with interacting scales.	Don Percival	NSF

XRay Flying Wing Glider The XRay glider is a newly designed, high-performance undersea robotic vehicle developed in partnership with the Marine Physical Lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.	Jim Luby	ONR

Any Investigators
Knut Aagaard
Rex Andrew
Bill Asher
Clark Bodyfelt
Andrew Brayman
Eric D'Asaro
Peter Dahl
Brian Dushaw
Kate Edwards
Ralph Foster
Bob Goddard
Mike Gregg
Gary Harkins
Mike Harrington
Andy Heiberg
Frank Henyey
Bruce Howe
Darrell Jackson
Andy Jessup
Chris Jones
David Jones
Kathie Kelly
Christopher Krembs
Craig Lee
Ellen Lettvin
Russ Light
Ron Lindsay
Jim Luby
David Martin
Sabine Mecking
Jim Mercer
Jack Miller
Bob Miyamoto
Jamie Morison
Dick Moritz
Jan Newton
Jeff Nystuen
Janet Olsonbaker
Don Percival
Jim Pitton
Bill Plant
Ignatius Rigor
Drew Rothrock
Scott Sandgathe
Tom Sanford
Bob Spindel
Mike Steele
Harry Stern
Marc Stewart
DJ Tang
Jim Thomson
Eric Thorsos
Tim Wen
Kevin Williams
Mike Wolfson
Rebecca Woodgate
Yanling Yu
Jinlun Zhang