Department of Oceanography Chair, Dr. David Thistle
Newsletter Editor, Designer, and HTML Author: Jennifer Moss
| View from the bridge | |
| Cover Feature: Clarke: Predicting the ENSO Cycle | |
| Feature: Water Allocation Project | |
| On Staff Derby: 14 Years with the Department | |
| Stern Symposium | |
| Seminars | |
| Department Lapel Pins | |
| Recent Publications | |
| Honors | |
| Travel and Other Activities | |
| Degrees Conferred |
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Clarke:Predicting the ENSO Cycle |
In 1998, Indonesia suffered its worst drought in more than half a century. Hundreds of fires, lit to clear Indonesian land, caused a choking haze over much of southeast Asia because the expected rain did not fall to extinguish the flames and wash away the haze. In Papua New Guinea, large-scale mining operations were forced to stop production as river levels hit record lows. Drier conditions also meant that there was less cloud cover at night, and in the New Guinea highlands the clearer nights resulted in high-altitude frosts. These and the drought devastated subsistence vegetable gardens forced many families to flee to the towns. The severe 1997/98 western Pacific drought was a direct result of El Niño and the Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an irregular climate signal that's generated in the tropical Pacific and affects not only the tropical Pacific but much of the world. In Florida, for example, El Niño winters tend to be wetter and colder than normal, and the U.S. and Gulf coast tends to have fewer landfalling hurricanes. At the moment, we are experiencing a La Nina, which is regarded as a cold ENSO episode because sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific are lower than normal. La Nina is the flip side of El Niño (a 'warm' ENSO episode). How long will this La Nina last? When will the next El Niño occur? These answers are not easy to come by. Dr. Allan Clarke, one of the department's physical oceanographers, has been studying this problem. He says, The trouble is that the available ENSO prediction models haven't been predicting for very long, so if El Niño has an irregular period of between two and seven years, and you've been predicting only for fifteen years, you don't have a lot of realizations tested. Even if you take into account retrospective forecasts, models have generally been tested for less than 30 years. We're still not predicting well enough--most models, for example, did not predict the start of the most recent huge 1997-98 El Niño. Clarke is currently working with Steve Van Gorder, a scientific programmer in the department, to understand a 60-year old ENSO mystery. Specifically, ENSO is phase-locked to the calendar year such that ENSO doesn't change much from July to February but often changes a lot from March to June. This means, for example, that when La Nina struck last July 1998 it was highly likely that it would persist until at least February this year. But now it's March, and it's much harder to predict whether we'll be in El Niño or La Nina conditions in June. In a Journal of Climate article in press, Clarke and Van Gorder have shown that this calendar year phase-locking is due to a fixed exactly 2-year cycle embedded in ENSO. In other ENSO work, Clarke, with former student Bin Li, Jianguo Wang (also of our department) and Steve Van Gorder, have explained the observation that, on average, the bigger the El Niño, the longer to the next La Nina. This ENSO property has to do with the east-west movement of a pool of western equatorial Pacific water roughly double the US in size. The bigger the El Niño, the further this pool is displaced eastward and the longer it takes ocean waves, thousands of miles in extent, to reflect from the western Pacific boundary and change El Niño to La Nina. Clarke is also busy writing a book entitled El Niño and the Southern Oscillation: Dynamics and Applications.
Familial influences have heightened Clarke’s interest in El Niño, as both of his grandfathers were Australian farmers. "Once droughts in Australia seemed random, and farmers and their families just had to suffer and ‘tough it out.’ Now we know there's a strong link to ENSO, and many Australian farmers watch ENSO closely on the website (http://www.dnr.qld.gov.au/longpdk). They have a much better idea of what is going on and plan accordingly. I'm just grateful that I can use physics and mathematics to actually try and help someone!" he adds.
As for the development of ocean/atmosphere science, Clarke says, "There's a revolution occurring right now. In the 1950's we were learning to predict the weather, now we are learning to predict climate."
ENSO sites:
www.coaps.fsu.edu
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Water Allocation ProjectWill Effect Apalachicola Bay |
by Jennifer Moss
The Apalachicola River is located at the terminus of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, which drains some 12.5 million acres in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. The Chattahoochee arises from a spring in North Georgia and flows 436 miles across the Piedmont and coastal plain to the Florida border where it joins the Flint and forms the Apalachicola. The Apalachicola then winds 108 miles across the Florida Panhandle and empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Apalachicola Bay.
The river transports into the bay tons of nutrients that nourish oysters and other marine life, providing the resource for 90 percent of Florida's commercial oyster fishery and 10 percent of the nation's. The fresh water from the river also controls the salinity levels of the bay, and thus keeps in check oyster predators like starfish and conchs, which prefer the saltier water entering the bay from sea. The health of the marine life in the bay depends on higher amounts of nutrient-laden fresh water from the river at certain times of the year, such as spring.
Increasing demands on the river basin's water supply in neighbor states are of growing concern to those interested in resources of Apalachicola Bay. Over a year ago, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and the U.S. federal government entered into the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin Compact to develop an equitable water-allocation formula due to the increased water demands on the river basin, especially during times of low flow and drought. The project, which was to be completed in December of last year, has been extended until December of 1999.
Research in each state is being conducted to address water needs and to assist in allocation decisions. In Florida, several institutions are involved in the investigation of this problem. The FSU Oceanography Department's Professor Richard Iverson, Research Assistant Behzad Mortazavi, and Professor Bill Landing, together with Professor Wenrui Huang of FAMU/FSU Engineering Department, have been studying nitrogen levels, a primary nutrient, in Apalachicola Bay for the past several years in conjunction with the water allocation project. They used the output from a three-dimensional circulation model, together with measurements over a two-year period to determine the variability and levels of the river's nitrogen input to the bay.
Their results show that most nutrients come into the bay during the winter or the period of high water flow. Lower light and temperature levels during the winter limit marine life productivity however. There is also not enough time during winter for bay plankton to assimilate the nutrition from the fresh water that is being replaced every 3-4 days in the bay. In contrast, during the summer months, the estuary receives more light and water temperatures increase yielding greater primary productivity. The summer months are also the time of low river flow, low nutrient input into the bay, and the time of greatest need for water upstream. The small amount of fresh water the bay receives during summer is crucial to the productivity of marine life in the bay. Therefore, the impact of water allocation on the food-web of Apalachicola Bay would be more dramatic during the summer when it is most likely to be required for upstream uses.
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Derby:14 Years with the Department |
Enter room 435 of the OSB and you will find Sheila Derby in her pleasantly arranged work area outside the vividly cerise office chamber of Bill Dewar. It is no accident that this intense hue enlivens the department decor, for as Sheila attests, "he does things very carefully, everything he does is always planned very well." Sheila Derby began working at the department in October of 1985 as an editorial assistant for Bill Burnett. About a year later, she had changed jobs to work for Bill Dewar and Benoit Cushman-Roisin as a Research Assistant and Grant Specialist. Later, when Benoit left FSU, she began working in the same capacity for Steve Meacham (who also left the department last year). Now working solely for Dewar, she uses her editorial and artistic skills to prepare manuscripts, proposals, and figures for publication as well as managing grant money. She has also found herself doing most of the travel, scheduling, and pr. arrangements for invited physical oceanography speakers. She comments, "I enjoy working with Dr. Dewar; he is very supportive." With a B.S. in fine art and a science minor from Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Sheila is well equipped to handle the functions of her position. "It has been a pleasure working with Ms. Derby. To the extent that I appear organized, or enjoy a measure of professional success, much of the credit must be given to her. Quite simply, she is competent. I am able, therefore, to give her complex projects, and with a minimum of direction from me, they are completed. On such occasions, I rest easy, because I know they are done correctly," Dewar says. Sheila has had fun with her position over the years. Many people around the department have seen the image of the Saminole (an unofficial FSU icon), what most people do not know is that Sheila was the original designer of this fishy symbol. She also captured the likeness in caricature of Bill Dewar and Jeff Chanton on a comical T-shirt for their introductory oceanography class (see background). She also enjoyed designing a web page for the same course. Before her days at the department, Sheila worked in the Department of Natural Resources (now called the Department of Environmental Protection) for various divisions. She helped organize and set up the Marine Fisheries Commission during this time. Sheila's name recently changed from Heseltine due to her marriage to Fred Derby in December of 1998 (congratulations!). Fred works for the Florida Department of Agriculture and has been a long time friend. Sheila also has two sons, Chris, 30, who works for Crawford Communications in Atlanta, and Rick, 34 who is a graphic designer in Asheville and a mountain bike enthusiast. Born in Missouri, Sheila has lived in Chicago, Syracuse, and Atlanta, where she went to high school. She enjoys travel and has been to Great Britain, Africa (where incidentally, she met Irma Bombec), and the Caribbean. She spends her time off enjoying her four acres outside of Havana, and her hobbies include gardening and photography. Back to Contents
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Melvin Stern Symposium |
On November 13, 1998, the department celebrated Melvin Stern’s election to the National Academy of Sciences by hosting a symposium with lecturers from around the globe. A wide variety of topics were covered (see lecture listings) and a few demonstrations brought to life theories. At right, Dr. Whitehead demonstrates during his presentation a model of a simple system, showing two basic states with a critical transition between them, to Stern and a group of fifty or so guests, faculty, students and staff. Spirits were high and many laughs were shared throughout the day.
These lectures were a special opportunity for the physical oceanography students to meet established scientists outside the department while staying in Tallahassee (see listing below). A reception at the Fireside Lounge rounded out the day.
Melvin Stern Symposium: November 13th, 1998:
"Some basic fluid experiments - new and old"
Dr. Allan Faller
Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland
"Solidification in Polar leads: theories, laboratory experiments and field observations"
Dr. Herbert E. Huppert
Cambridge University, England
"The effects of topography on the propagation of mid-latitude Rossby waves"
Dr. Peter Killworth
University of Southampton, England
"A few remarks on the structural stiffness of the Gulf Stream"
Dr. H. Thomas Rossby
University of Rhode Island
"Ahead of his time: A theoretician’s inferences about oceanic mixing"
Dr. Raymond Schmitt
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
"Vertical structure in multiple state undermixed flows"
Dr. J.A. Whitehead
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
"Circulation in a sliced cone: Experiments, theory, and multiple solutions"
Dr. George Veronis
Yale University
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Announcing:Department Lapel Pins! |
Department pins will be a gift to anyone wishing to make a donation to the department of $10 or more. Please contact Jennifer Moss at (850) 575-9484 or moss@ocean.fsu.edu for more details. Service award pins were awarded to associates who have been working in the department for over 5 years during a reception on April 26th.
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"Microbial Respiration In Georgia Saltmarsh Sediments: Controls And Biogeochemical Feedbacks" Dr. Joel Kostka Skidaway Institute of Oceanography January 11, 1999
"Dynamics Of Dissolved Organic Carbon and Interactions With Bacterioplankton In The Oceanic Environment"
Dr. Craig Carlson
Bermuda Station for Biological Research
January 14, 1999
"Reconstructing the Carbonate Ion Content of Deep Ocean Waters"
Dr. Wallace S. Broecker
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University
February 18, 1999
Co-Sponsored by the FSU Departments of Oceanography and Chemistry
"Chemistry of the U(VI) Solid Phases: What Can Laboratory Studies and Field Observations Tell us About the Disposal of the Nation's Spent Nuclear Fuel?"
Dr. Sue B. Clark
Department of Chemistry
Washington State University
February 23, 1999
"SST Fronts from AVHRR: Global and Regional Perspectives"
Dr. Peter Cornillon
Graduate School of Oceanography
University of Rhode Island
Feb. 26, 1999
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Ocean and Atmospheric Prediction Studies and the Department of Oceanography
"Operational Oceanography"
Dr. Lars Petter Roed
Institutt for Geofysikk Oseanografi
Oslo, Norway
March 1, 1999
"Barotropic Eddies on the Beta Plane"
Prof. Roger Grimshaw
Monash University
Melbourne, Australia
March 22, 1999
"25 Years of Monitoring in the North Sea: Spatial Distribution Patterns and Temporal Trends in Trace Metal Concentrations in the German Bight"
Dr. Diether Schmidt
Bundesamt für Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie
Hamburg, Germany
March 22, 1999
"Boundary sources of potential vorticity in oceans and atmospheres"
Prof. Peter B. Rhines
College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences
University of Washington
March 31, 1999
"Harmful Algal Blooms Research at EPA's Gulf Ecology Division"
Dr. Rick Green
Gulf Breeze EPA Laboratory
April 2, 1999
Co-sponsored by the Oceanography Department and the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
"High Resolution Numerical Simulations of the North Atlantic: Design, implementation, performance, and results"
Dr. Eric P. Chassignet
RSMAS/MPO,
University of Miami,
Monday April 5, 1999
"Coastally Trapped Disturbances in the Stable Atmospheric Marine Layer along the U.S. West Coast: Observations and Dynamical Interpretations"
Chair and Prof. John M. Bane
Dept. of Marine Science
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
April 7, 1999
"Economic Valuation of Coastal and Marine Resources"
Dr. Mary Burke
Department of Economics
Florida State University
April 9, 1999
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Borisov, S. and D. Nof. 1998. Deep, cross-equatorial eddies. Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn., 87, 273-310.
Burnett, W.C., R. Wong, S.B. Clark, and B. Crandall. 1998. Direct counting of soil wafers - an improved total alpha/beta screening analysis. Jour. Radioanalytical & Nuclear Chemistry, 235, 173-178.
Cerulean, S. and J. Chanton. 1998. Taking stock in fisheries: A marine reserve proposal to ensure sustainable fisheries. Florida Naturalist, 71, 16-17.
Clarke, A.J., and A. Lebedev. 1999. Remotely driven decadal and longer changes in the coastal Pacific waters of the Americas. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 29, 828-835.
Dewar, W.K. 1998. Topography and barotropic transport control by bottom friction. J. of Marine Research, 56, 295-328.
Dewar, W.K., 1998. On "too-fast" baroclinic planetary waves in the general circulation. J. of Phys. Ocean., 28, 1739-1758.
Dewar, W.K., Y. Hsueh, T.J. McDougall and D. Yuan. 1998. Calculation of pressure in ocean simulations. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 28, 577-588.
Kravtsov, S. and W.K. Dewar. 1998. Multiple equilibria and transitions in a coupled ocean-atmosphere box model. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 28, 389-397.
Liptay, K., J. Chanton, P. Czepiel, and B. Mosher. 1998. Use of stable isotopes to determine methane oxidation in landfill cover soils. JGR-Atmospheres, 103D, 8243-8250.
Marcus, N.H. 1998. Vulnerability of Centropages hamatus (Copepoda: Calanoida) to anoxia: The influence of time of initial exposure. Hydrobiologia, 52, 273-279.
Marcus, N.H. and F. Boero. 1998. The importance of benthic-pelagic coupling and the forgotten role of life cycles in coastal aquatic systems. Limnology and Oceanography, 43, 763-768.
Marcus, N.H. and R. Lutz. 1998. Longevity of subitaneous and diapause eggs of Centropages hamatus (Copepoda: Calanoida) from the northern Gulf of Mexico. Marine Biology, 131, 249-257.
Mask, A.C., J.J. O'Brien, and R. Preller. 1998. Wind-driven effects on the Yellow Sea Warm Current. JGR, C13, 30713-30729.
McDougall, T.J. and W.K. Dewar. 1998. Vertical mixing, cabbeling and thermobaricity in layered models. J. of Phys. Ocean., 28, 1458-1480.
Nazarenko, D.V., G. Weatherly, V.V. Zhmur, V.M. Prostokeshin, and M.V. Jakoukenko. 1998. On the evolution of a dense lens flowing along the continental slope. Oceanology, 38, 195-202.
Nof, D. 1998. The 'separation-formula' and its application to the Pacific Ocean. Deep-Sea Res. I, 45, 2011-2033.
Nof, D. and S. Borisov. 1998. Inter-hemispheric oceanic exchange. Q. J. Royal Meteorol. Soc., 124, 2829-2866.
Nof, D. and T. Pichevin. 1998. The establishment of the Tsugaru and the Alboran gyres. J. Phys. Oceanogr., 29, 39-54.
Proctor, L. M. 1998. Ecology of Marine Viruses. In: Molecular Approaches to the Study of the Ocean, K.E. Cooksey (ed.), Chapman and Hall, 24 pp.
Rivers, J.S., D.I. Siegel, L.S. Chasar, J.P. Chanton, and P.H. Glaser. 1998. A stochastic appraisal of the annual carbon budget of large circumboreal peatland, Rapid River Watershed, northern Minnesota. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 12, 715-728.
Shultz, M.K., K.G.W. Inn, W.C. Burnett, and G. Smith. 1998. Geochemical partitioning of actinides using sequential chemical extractions: comparison to stable elements. Jour. Radioanalytical & Nuclear Chemistry, 234, 251-256.
Smith, S.R., P.M. Green, A.P. Leonardi, and J.J. O'Brien 1998. Role of multiple-level tropospheric circulations in forcing ENSO winter precipitation anomalies. Monthly Weather Review, 126, 3102-3116.
Thistle, D. 1998. Harpacticoid copepod diversity at two physically reworked sites in the deep sea. Deep-Sea Res. II, 45, 13-24.
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Faculty Awards
Dr. Bill Burnett received the Founder's Award at the 44th Annual Conference
on Bioassay, Analytical and Environmental Radiochemistry held in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, November, 1998.
Dr. Nancy Marcus was appointed FSU Sea Grant Coordinator in fall of 1998.
Dr. Doron Nof was recently elected as a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Dr. James O'Brien is the1999 recipient of the FSU Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Award. He was also presented NASA's Group Achievement Award for serving as one of the original principal investigators on the NASA Scatterometer Science Team.
Student Awards
This years's outstanding graduate students are Glynnis Bugna and Steve Morey. They will be recognized later this month at a reception. They will also receive a $50 appreciation award. Those chosen have passed their preliminary exams and have shown excellence in publication efforts and other scientific endeavors.
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Invited Presentations, Travel, and Other Activities
Dr. Bill Burnett traveled to Monaco for a 3-week scientific visit to Pavel Povenic's radiochemistry laboratory at the IAEA's Marine Environment Laboratory.
Dr. Jeffery Chanton was an invited speaker at the University of Delaware and Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. in spring of 1999. He gave a talk titled "Past and Present Trophic Structure of Florida Bay: stable isotope analysis" at the Feb. 1999 ASLO (American Society for Limnology and Oceanography) Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He also co-chaired a session on groundwater discharge to the ocean at AGU Ocean Science meeting in San Diego, Feb. 1998.
Lia Chasar gave a talk titled "Carbon Dynamics in Large Northern Peatlands: New Evidence for microbial respiration driven by recently fixed surficial DOC as deep as 3 meters within 3000-5000 year old peat" at the annual ASLO Meeting, Feb. 1999, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Robert Hetland was a judge at the 1999 Leon County Science Fair.
Dr. Bill Landing gave 2 invited lectures at the University of Bremen in September 1998: "Trace metal cycling in the Black Sea" to the Geology Department, and "Mercury transport and deposition in Florida" to the Chemistry Department. He also gave a talk at the November 1998 Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) meeting in Amsterdam: "Deposition and cycling of Iron in the southern and equatorial Atlantic."
Landing was also a head judge in the senior natural sciences division of the 1999 Leon County Annual Science Fair, judging the top entries for the entire division.
Dr. Nancy Marcus chaired a workshop at the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting in Santa Fe, Feb. 1-5, 1999 titled "Innovative Teaching Methods in the Aquatic Sciences."
Dr. Doron Nof gave a presentation at the South Atlantic Climate Change Workshop in Miami, Florida last year.
Dr. Lita Proctor gave an invited presentation at LUMCON in spring of 1999 entitled "The microbial ecology of petroleum hydrocarbon metabolism in marine sediments."
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Christopher DeHaan (MS, Sturges) "The Windage Effect on Ship-Drift Data: a Mass Conservation Approach"
Stephen C. Ertman (D, Thistle) "Larval Dispersal and Settlement in the Shallow Coastal Ocean"
Sangok Noh (MS, Winchester) "Marine Aerosol Components in the North Atlantic Troposphere"
Linda Rasmussen (MS, Chanton) "Groundwater Flow, Tidal Mixing, and Haline Convection in Coastal Sediments"
Scott Sigler (MS, Landing) "The History of Mercury Sedimentation in a Florida Seepage Lake"
Katharine White (MS, Dewar) "Neutral Surface Mapping of the Mediterranian Outflow"
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David Thistle, Chair
Two events since the last newsletter stand out in my mind. This fall, the chemical and biological oceanographers searched for someone to replace Dr. Patricia Yager, who accepted an appointment at the University of Georgia. After the customary round of interviews and seminars, they selected Dr. Joel Kostka of Skidaway Institution of Oceanography. Dr. Kostka is a microbiologist-biogeochemist whose skills and interests should nicely bridge between the two groups. He has accepted and will join us in August. This winter also saw the first fruits of our renovations on the fourth floor. The large room on the east side of the central core has now been partitioned into three offices and a meeting room. With this work and the renovation of the central lab, which is in the design phase, the department will have gone a long way toward solving the space problems on the physical-oceanography floor.
At 4:00 p.m. on 26 April, the department will honor all staff members with a reception. Dean Donald Foss will say a few words, and each staffer who has been with the department for five years or more will receive a lapel pin. The pins are similar to the department pins, but an additional outer band reads "Service Award -- FSU Oceanography." At the reception, we will also formally congratulate this year's Outstanding Graduate Students, Glynnis Bugna and Steve Morey. Join us if you can.
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