University of Hawaii proposes to support technical services on R/V Kilo Moana (KM), a 185? general purpose research vessel operated as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research fleet. The proposal requests support for basic services and specialized services. For basic services, they will provide two shipboard technicians on each cruise of R/V Kilo Moana to support seagoing research projects and to maintain, calibrate and provide for qualified users items from their pool of shared-use research instrumentation. The Institution also supports some operations on the Research Vessel Ka`imikai O Kanaloa (KOK), which is not a UNOLS vessel, but does support some federally sponsored research, including some for NSF. As part of basic services, they will maintain and operate a multibeam sonar system (both 12 kHz and 95 kHz instruments are available) on the KM. As specialized services, they offer two towed seafloor mapping systems (HAWAII MR1 and IMI-30) for shallow- or deep-towed imaging and bathymetry, and they provide services to evaluate the quality of data from acoustic current profilers installed on UNOLS vessels. The budget included with this proposal is for the first year of a 3-year continuing grant.
University of Hawaii operates the Navy-owned research vessel Kilo Moana as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS, www.unols.org/), a consortium of oceanographic research laboratories that coordinates ship schedules to provide vessel time, technical support and shared-use instrumentation and equipment support to researchers funded by federal agencies (NSF, ONR, NOAA, primarily). The primary objective is to enable researchers to conduct basic research in ocean sciences without a need to maintain these expensive and unique ocean research capabilities at every institution. NSF plays the lead role in managing the UNOLS fleet, as roughly 60-70% of the funded work on UNOLS vessels usually originates from NSF. In the operating model used by the federal agencies through UNOLS, ship operations are supported under multi-year cooperative agreements between the individual vessel operators and NSF. The operator also provides technical support to the researchers, including trained personnel and shared-use instruments, and the operator commits to the collection and archiving of data from these shared-use instruments, using the NSF-sponsored "R2R" ("Rolling-ship To Repository") data archiving system and two NOAA-funded national data centers (NODC and NGDC). The present award supported technical services on Kilo Moana during the January 2009 through December 2011, including 791 operating days, with 461 (58%) funded by NSF, 130 for Navy (16%), 34 for NOAA (4%), and 83 each for State of Hawaii (10%), and other groups (10%). Projects encompassed a wide array of research, including physical, chemical, biological and geological oceanography. One major focus, involving about 40 days annually, is research at the Hawaii Ocean Time-Series (HOT; http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/) station ALOHA, where a 25-year NSF-funded study of ocean properties and processes documents the mechanisms involved in biogeochemical cycling, physical transport and water column fluxes in the oligotrophic central Pacific basin. Among its many publications over the years, HOT shows 131 invited and refereed publications during the 3-year window of this technical services award (http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/hotpub.html). The data collected for HOT have described the complex processes involved in nitrogen cycling, and documented increased acidification of the water column here over that time period, which in many respects mimics the rise in CO2 level recorded at the Mauna Kea (e.g. Dore et al, 2009). Station ALOHA also serves the Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and Education (CMORE), the NSF-established Science and Technology Center at UH that addresses the role of microbes in ocean processes (http://cmore.soest.hawaii.edu/). CMORE annually uses Kilo Moana for research and education, including more than forty days during this period. Other projects during the award period included studies of active submarine volcanoes in the Marianas Arc and Lau Basin, research on physical oceanography and acoustic propagation in the Philippine Sea, the initial science mission for the WHOI hybrid ROV Nereus in Challenger Deep (deepest ocean depth in the Mariana Trench), research on the biology of diatoms and cycling of silica in the Central North Pacific Gyre, studies of optical variability in the ocean and the impact of bubbles and surface waves, microbial processes in iron cycling in the ocean, mapping of the Exclusive Economic Zone in the Mariana Arc, and other research. The role of University of Hawaii shipboard technicians is to ensure that the vessel’s shared-use instruments are operational, calibrated, and used properly, and that data are logged and archived. Instruments include navigation tools, meteorological and surface water measurement systems, mapping sonars for shallow and deep water, precision conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) systems that carry additional sensors for measuring dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and chlorophyll, and collect 24 samples of water from discrete depths, bottom-sampling tools (coring and dredge systems), plankton samplers, and more. Technicians maintain the shipboard LAN for computers used in data acquisition, analysis and communication, and they maintain communications systems for voice and Internet links ashore. The Ocean Technology Group personnel funded here are the interface between ship’s crew and the scientific team, who come from many US (and some foreign) universities or research centers. Beyond basic technical services on Kilo Moana described above, this award also provided support for specialized services. The first is the support of acoustic current profilers across the UNOLS fleet. The team led by Hummon and Firing provides software and instruction to operate, quality-control and archive data from the ADCP systems installed on all UNOLS ships. The other systems supported here are the towed imaging sonars IMI-30 and IMI-120, when projects require their use. The sidescan sonar and high resolution bathymetry data they provide is for geological research, as well as base maps for photographic and sampling investigations for biological, chemical and geological research. The award described here was renewed in 2012 and the technical services support on R/V Kilo Moana continues under NSF award OCE-1227720. Reference: Dore JE, Lukas R, Sadler DW, Church MJ, Karl DM. (2009). Physical and biogeochemical modulation of ocean acidification in the central North Pacific. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106: 12235–12240.
