A request is made to fund additional and back-up instrumentation on the R/V Roger Revelle, a 273? general purpose Global vessel; the R/V Melville, a 279?general purpose Global vessel; the R/V New Horizon, a 170?, general purpose, Ocean/Intermediate vessel and the R/V Sproul, a 125? general purpose Coastal/Local vessel. All four vessels are operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System research fleet.
Both R/V Roger Revelle and R/V Melville are Global vessels owned by the Navy. They support multidisciplinary oceanographic research in all of the world?s ocean basins. R/V New Horizon, owned by the State of California, focuses primarily on offshore California but has been used for work throughout the Pacific. The primary working area for R/V Sproul, also owned by the State of California, has been the continental shelf and coastal environments off Southern California. In 2013, R/V Roger Revelle completed 266 days, 73 (27%) of which were for NSF. Melville completed 307 days, with 169 (55%) being for NSF. New Horizon sailed 163 days and 57 (35%) were for NSF while Sproul had 31 total days with 10 (30%) funded by NSF. The schedule for 2014 shows Revelle with 247 total days with 62 (25%) of them for NSF. Melville is scheduled to sail 128 days with 80 (63%) of them for NSF. New Horizon has 144 total days with 62 (43%) for NSF and Sproul has 13 days scheduled with no NSF days in 2014. Oceanographic Instrumentation requested in this proposal includes: 1) Deadweight Tester $ 15,425 2) H2000 ROV Spares $ 40,933 $ 56,358
Broader Impacts The principal impact of the present proposal is under Merit Review Criterion 2 of the Proposal Guidelines (NSF 13-589). It provides infrastructure support for scientists to use the vessel and its shared-use instrumentation in support of their NSF-funded oceanographic research projects (which individually undergo separate review by the relevant research program of NSF). The acquisition, maintenance and operation of shared-use instrumentation allows NSF-funded researchers from any US university or lab access to working, calibrated instruments for their research, reducing the cost of that research, and expanding the base of potential researchers.
