This proposal asks for 5 additional years of support for the SWAB program. The SWAB program has been going on for nearly 30 years as the mechanism for keeping tritium (3H) and radiocarbon (14C) contamination of ships and associated vans and laboratories to a minimum. The SWAB program proposes to continue operations in order to minimize contamination on ships involved in measuring natural abundances of 14C and 3H as part of global ocean programs such as CLIVAR and IOCCP.
Broader Impacts: The principal impact of the present proposal is under criterion two, providing 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.
