K. Headley

A short-term in situ CO 2 enrichment experiment on Heron Island (GBR)

Ocean acidification poses multiple challenges for coral reefs on molecular to ecological scales, yet previous experimental studies of the impact of projected CO2 concentrations have mostly been done in aquarium systems with corals removed from their natural ecosystem and placed under artificial light and seawater conditions. The Coral–Proto Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment System (CP-FOCE) uses a network of sensors to monitor conditions within each flume and maintain experimental pH as an offset from environmental pH using feedback control on the injection of low pH seawater. Carbonate chemistry conditions maintained in the −0.06 and −0.22 pH offset treatments were significantly different than environmental conditions. The results from this short-term experiment suggest that the CP-FOCE is an important new experimental system to study in situ impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems.

Standards-Based Plug & Work for Instruments in Ocean Observing Systems

Ocean observing systems may include a wide variety of sensor and instrument types, each with its own capabilities, communication protocols, and data formats. Connecting disparate devices into a network typically requires specialized software drivers that translate command and data between the protocols of the individual instruments, and that of the platform on which they are installed. In addition, such platforms typically require extensive manual configuration to match the driver software and other operational details of each network port to a specific connected instrument. In this paper, we describe an approach to “plug & work” interoperability, using standardized protocols to greatly reduce the amount of instrument-specific software and manual configuration required for connecting instruments to an observatory system. Our approach has two main components. First, we use the sensor interface descriptor (SID) model, based on the Open Geospatial Consortiums (OGC) SensorML standard, to describe each instruments protocol and data format, and to provide a generic driver/parser. Second, a new OGC standard known as the programmable underwater connector with knowledge (PUCK) protocol enables storage and retrieval of the SID file from the instrument itself. We demonstrate and evaluate our approach by applying it to three commonly used marine instruments in the OBSEA (Barcelona, Spain) observatory test bed.

Instrument interface standards for interoperable ocean sensor networks

The utility and cost-effectiveness of instrument networks are enhanced by instrument interoperability. Todays oceanographic instruments are characterized by very diverse non-standard software protocols and data formats. This diversity of protocols poses serious challenges to integration of large-scale sensor networks. Standard instrument protocols are now being developed to address these challenges. Some of these standards apply at the IP-network level and enable integration of existing “lower level” proprietary instrument protocols and software components. Other approaches are intended to be implemented by the instrument device itself. These native instrument protocol standards offer the possibility of more uniform and simpler system architectures. We compare these various approaches, describe how they can be combined with one another, and describe some prototypes that implement them.

MBARI Technology for Self-Configuring Interoperable Ocean Observatories

The ocean science and engineering communities have identified some key requirements for large-scale ocean observatories at a recent ORION-sponsored workshop, and these requirements are being refined by the ORION project and others. MBARI has developed and deployed hardware and software technologies that address many of these requirements. In particular, we describe how these technologies address several key issues: (1) scalable integration, configuration, and management of large numbers of diverse instruments and data streams, (2) reliable association of instrument data and contextual metadata, and (3) development of observatory infrastructure and components that are interoperable among a variety of observatory architectures, including at-sea systems with relatively limited power and bandwidth availability. We focus on three technologies developed at MBARI. These technologies work together to enable MBARIs self-configuring self-describing MOOS mooring-based observatory. Yet these technologies have been designed to be largely independent of an observatorys physical implementation, and will be deployed for testing on the MARS cable-to-shore observatory test-bed. Moreover each of the technologies provide components that could be selectively used by other observatories. For example, PUCKs could be widely useful and are not dependent in any way on SIAM middleware or SSDS metadata structures. We also describe lessons learned during development and deployment of these technologies, and how policies and human-procedures interact with the new technologies. Finally, we discuss how these technologies are being refined through community efforts such as the emerging Marine Plug and Work Consortium and Marine Metadata Initiative

MBARI's buoy based seafloor observatory design

There has been considerable discussion and planning in the oceanographic community toward the installation of long-term seafloor sites for scientific observation in the deep ocean. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has designed a portable mooring system for deep ocean deployment that provides data and power connections to both seafloor and ocean surface instruments. The surface mooring collects solar and wind energy for powering instruments and transmits data to shore-side researchers using a satellite communications modem. A specialty anchor cable connects the surface mooring to a network of benthic instrumentation, providing the required data and power transfer. Design details and results of laboratory and field testing of the completed portions of the observatory system are described

The coral proto - free ocean carbon enrichment system (CP-FOCE): Engineering and development

Ocean acidification is driven by increasing atmospheric CO2 and represents a key threat to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and other coral reefs globally. Previous investigations have depended on studies in aquaria that are compromised by reduced ecological complexity and buffering capacity, and problems associated with containment. These aquaria studies also include artifacts such as artificial flow, light, temperature, and water quality conditions. In order to avoid these issues a new technology was needed for in situ science. This need was the driver behind development of the Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment (FOCE) approach. FOCE is similar in approach to the Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) experiments pursued on land for almost two decades. FOCE as a systems concept was developed at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to perform controlled in situ studies on the effects of increased carbon dioxide on ocean environments. FOCE systems inject carbon dioxide enriched water into the desired control volume to lower the environmental pH to a specified value.

An ocean observatory sensor network application

We describe our implementation of a novel deep ocean sensor network, the MBARI Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment (FOCE). FOCE is a system designed for installation in the deep ocean to enable manipulative experiments that explore the impact of deep ocean increase in CO2 and resulting pH change on ocean biogeochemistry and ecology. This system uses control feedback and pH sensors to inject CO2 into a small volume of seawater, thus creating a controlled environment per science requirements. To implement this system, we utilized the MBARI-developed network middleware known as “SIAM”, which provides a standardized interface to instruments on a sensor network. For the FOCE application we integrated Open Source DataTurbine (OSDT) into SIAM. OSDT provides asynchronous communication links between distributed components, and is particularly well-suited to streaming instrument data. Combined with the existing synchronous SIAM framework, these features enabled a straightforward and efficient architecture for our application. We describe how we achieved our goals of software reuse of infrastructure and instrument services, instrument-in-the-loop control, and rapid assembly of a scalable end-to-end sensor network system.

Cabled instrument technologies for ocean acidification research — FOCE (free ocean CO 2 enrichment)

With rising concern over the impacts of ocean acidification on marine life there is a need for greatly improved techniques for carrying out in situ experiments. These must be able to create a ΔpH of 0.3 to 0.5 by addition of CO<inf>2</inf> for studies of natural ecosystems such as coral reefs, cold water corals, and other sensitive benthic habitats. Thus controlled CO<inf>2</inf> perturbation experiments in the field rather than in aquaria are quickly becoming an essential ocean science tool. Free Air CO<inf>2</inf> Enrichment (FACE) experiments have long been carried out on land to investigate the effects of elevated atmospheric CO<inf>2</inf> levels on vegetation. However, only limited work on CO<inf>2</inf> enrichment using quasi-open systems has yet been carried out in the ocean. Seawater CO<inf>2</inf> has complex chemistry with significantly slow reaction kinetics, unlike land-air experiments where simple mixing is the major concern. Ocean experimental designs must to take these reaction rates into account. The net result of adding a small quantity of CO<inf>2</inf> to seawater is to reduce the concentration of dissolved carbonate ion, and increase bicarbonate ion through the reaction: CO<inf>2</inf> + H<inf>2</inf>O + CO<inf>3</inf>²⁻ → 2HCO<inf>3</inf>⁻ The reaction between CO<inf>2</inf> and H<inf>2</inf>O is slow and is a complex function of temperature, pH, and TCO<inf>2</inf>. The reaction proceeds more rapidly at lower pH and higher temperatures. Marine animals in the natural ocean will typically experience only small and temporary shifts from environmental CO<inf>2</inf> equilibrium. Valid perturbation experiments must try to expose an experimental region to a near stable lower pH condition, and avoid large and rapid pH variability to the extent possible. This paper describes the design, development and testing of an in situ pH perturbation experiment deployed on a subsea cable for control. The paper addresses the differences between the deep-sea and shallow water versions of the experiments and addresses the pH sensor developments that enable long deployments.

A New Mooring Controller platform: an evolution of the OASIS instrument controller toward a distributed ocean observing system

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a privately funded, non-profit research institute dedicated to technology development in support of the oceanographic community. The New Mooring Controller (NMC) project was begun at MBARI in the fall of 2000 to develop the next evolutionary step to the current OASIS mooring controller. The NMC design features a low-power 32-bit embedded processor and incorporates advanced embedded software technologies. This paper focuses on the system requirements and design decisions that were made regarding system hardware and software.

Design and development of the CO 2 enriched Seawater Distribution System

The kinetics of the reaction that occurs when CO2 and seawater are in contact is a complex function of temperature, alkalinity, final pH and TCO2 which taken together determine the time required for complete equilibrium. This reaction is extremely important to the study of Ocean Acidification (OA) and is the critical technical driver in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institutes (MBARI) Free Ocean CO2 Enrichment (FOCE) experiments. The deep water FOCE science experiments are conducted at depths beyond scuba diver reach and demand that a valid perturbation experiment operate at a stable yet naturally fluctuating lower pH condition and avoid large or rapid pH variation as well as incomplete reactions, when we expose an experimental region or sample. Therefore, the technical requirement is to create a CO2 source in situ that is stable and well controlled. After extensive research and experimentation MBARI has developed the ability to create an in situ source of CO2 enriched seawater (ESW) for distribution and subsequent use in an ocean acidification experiment. The system mates with FOCE, but can be used in conjunction with other CO2 experimental applications in deep water. The ESW system is completely standalone from FOCE.