This proposal requests funds to support the research vessel KILO MOANA, which will be used as a platform for 13 separate cruises for NSF funded research programs. In 2005, the ship will be operating in both the north and south Pacific. The ship has a 236-day schedule, and 116 of those days support NSF Oceanographic programs. This is year 1 of 5 of a new cooperative agreement, and ship support will be renegotiated each year. The level of support is directly related to the number of days of ship time in support of NSF funded research program.
INTELLECTUAL AND TECHNICAL MERIT Hawaiian Ocean Time (HOT) series measurements north of Oahu have characterized the hydrography and biogeochemistry of the north Pacific subtropical gyre since 1988. The ship will continue to support this program and will be used to conduct co-located process studies, including the deployment of multi-disciplinary ocean sensors for environmental analyses and networks (MOSEAN). The KILO MOANA will also be involved in exploration of the South Pacific, including two MARGINS studies of New Zealand sediment dynamics and shelf/slope processes, as well as a program that samples young volcanism associated with the mantle hot spot in American Samoa.
In terms of BROADER IMPACTS, use of UH ships will allow researchers to make cost-effective studies of the currents, nutrients, CO2 and biota that together control the physical, biological and chemical processes in the surface ocean and the flux of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere. Such studies are part of large international efforts to understand the global carbon cycle, coupled ocean-atmosphere climate forcing, and ocean ecosystem dynamics and productivity - all of which are environmental and public policy issues with direct societal impacts. Regarding quality of service, the UH Marine Center is the first and still the only UNOLS operator to obtain the "Company Compliance for Marine Safety and Quality Management" which certifies that we meet the requirements of ISO 9001 (Quality), as well as the "Document of Compliance" for ISM (Safety). KILO MOANA was issued her "Document of Compliance" for ISM in June 2003. The University of Hawaii is an EPSCoR institution, with an underrepresented student population that is far from the mainland and alternate facilities, but whose location and maritime tradition are ideally suited for oceanography. KILO MOANA is the newest ship and the first Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) vessel in the US academic research fleet. The SWATH hull is designed to provide a stable platform that allows research to continue in higher sea conditions than comparable monohulls. In 2005 we will sustain operations in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea from June into October. Her sea kindliness is particularly advantageous for support of education and public outreach where many of the participants do not have their sea legs. Each year we conduct state-funded student cruises to make the most of this opportunity and we are including high school teachers in these cruises in support of K-12 education. In addition we have held open houses and encouraged schools and other groups to take tours of the vessels. The KILO MOANA is at the cutting edge of research vessel technology and we plan to continue to maximize her exposure to the public.
" Alexander Shor, PI University of Hawaii Summary OCE-0500180 was a cooperative agreement between NSF and University of Hawaii to support research vessel operations of the R/V Kilo Moana. Kilo Moana is owned by the US Navy and operated by UH as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), a distributed fleet of vessels that support federally-funded academic research in the ocean sciences. NSF serves as the primary federal agency to manage the fleet, although the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as a half dozen other federal agencies participate in support of the fleet and oversight of UNOLS activities. Funds in the present cooperative agreement supported just those days involving NSF science programs; ship schedules, which are based on calendar year operations, include time from various federal agencies, and costs are divided among funding sources precisely according to their individual use of the vessel. Details of the projects involved in each year of support are described in annual reports to NSF, and costs are provided in detail for each of four years (two completed, one ongoing and one proposed) so that day rates can be evaluated and adjusted as needed. The present award was made in April 2005, and intended to cover the period 1/1/05 through 12/31/09, with annual funding increments provided based on final ship schedules and negotiated budgets. NSF extended the award for two additional years while new cooperative agreements were under development, and the award ultimately supported operations for seven years (2005 through 2011). The University of Hawaii is presently operating Kilo Moana under a new cooperative agreement (OCE-1216590) that was initiated in early 2012 for another five years. Total usage of R/V Kilo Moana by agency and year under this award: As indicated in ship utilization data available to the public on the UNOLS website (www.unols.org), the total usage of the vessel over the seven years was 1,756 operating days, of which 1,111 supported NSF research, 200 were for Navy work, 122 were in support of NOAA, 154 supported State projects (mostly University of Hawaii research and teaching), and 157 were for other projects. Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts Funding to support the research programs on Kilo Moana is provided separately to the researchers undertaking the projects, and thus the review of the present proposal addresses the operational aspects (Broader Impacts) and not the scientific objectives or rationale (Intellectual Merit) for the projects that get assigned to the vessel. We note, however, that the research that is carried out under NSF funding is high quality, peer reviewed science, and it is an important component of the peer-reviewed research that is funded through NSF in ocean sciences. One of the major programs supported by Kilo Moana is the Hawaii Ocean Time-series program, or HOT (http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/) which began field operations in October 1988, and continues with funding through the Division of Ocean Sciences at NSF. The broad objective of HOT is to maintain a time series of high quality oceanographic and atmospheric observations at Station ALOHA, approximately 60 miles north of Oahu, to provide a basis for research studies of time variability and processes in marine biology, physical oceanography and chemical oceanography of the central North Pacific. A similar station is located in the central north Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda. HOT receives funding for approximately forty days of ship operations annually, most of which is carried on Kilo Moana, and it involves an intensive program of water and biological sampling and profiling on each of ten 4-day trips. It has been a phenomenally successful program in its quarter century of operations, and a brief look at the publications list shows 103 refereed publications during the time of this grant, as well as eight Ph.D. dissertations and six M.S. theses. Details of vessel operations are reported quarterly to NSF under the terms of the cooperative agreement. Operational or safety problems are reported immediately, and addressed as required to ensure operational quality and safety are maintained in accordance with UNOLS standards and the expectations of NSF, as well as ONR (the vessel owner) and University of Hawaii, the operator under Charter Party Agreement with ONR.
