Jul 21, 2015

JISAO scientists play critical role in ocean health XPRIZE

Deploying the CTD off hte coast of Hawaii.

Sunburst Sensors, based out of Missoula, MT, grabbed the two top spots in the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE, receiving a $1.5 million award for advancing scientist’s ability to measure ocean chemistry as it relates to ocean acidification. Designed as a competition to spur innovation, teams from around the globe competed to develop the most promising technologies in two categories: a device that is easy to use and cost effective and a device that is highly accurate when tracking ocean acidification.

College of the Environment students, researchers at sea to learn more about deep-sea volcano eruption

Students onboard the R/V Thompson collect velella velella (by-the-wind-sailors) off the starboard side during the first leg of the expedition.

When the Axial Seamount, an underwater volcano, erupted off the coast of Oregon in April, researchers knew within minutes that something spectacular was happening more than 300 miles offshore. Precision hardware installed by the University of Washington last summer let scientists see its effects almost instantly from shore. A team of researchers, engineers and students is now at sea working to maintain that equipment and assess the volcano’s aftermath.

UW oceanographers wire up an undersea volcano to study Earth's most extreme environment

Several hundred miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, there’s an undersea volcano known as Axial Seamount. Thanks to a set of high-tech instruments installed last summer by a team of scientists, many from the College of the Environment, the deep sea is online and oceanographers were able to observe an eruption of the Axial Volcano in April 2015. PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan recently spoke with the School of Oceanography‘s John Delaney and Debbie Kelley about their team’s deep sea observatory, including a network of sensors, moorings, and cameras that collect troves of new information about this underwater world.

Scientists weigh in on carbon emissions' effect on future ocean conditions

Ahead of major climate talks at COP21 this year in Paris, scientists are offering insights to the far-reaching effects of rising carbon dioxide levels on the ocean. Spearheaded by the Oceans 2015 Initiative, which brought together 22 scientists and policy experts from nine different countries, the results were published this week in the journal Science and focus on how warming waters, rising seas, and ocean acidification drive changes to the global ocean.

Researcher at UW’s Olympic Natural Resources Center helps pinpoint massive harmful algal bloom

The algal bloom that shut down several shellfish fisheries along the West Coast earlier this year has developed into the largest and most severe in a decade or more—stretching from at least central California to as far north as Alaska. UW research analyst Anthony Odell is part of a NOAA-led team of harmful algae experts who are surveying the extent of the patch and searching for the swirling eddies that can become toxic to marine mammals and humans.