Tracking the ocean
The Tuckerton station is mission control for investigating coastal waters
Archived article from Oct 27, 2000
By Margaret Sullivan
Scientists at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS) see it as a replica of NASA's Mission Control -- a manned bank of computers monitoring every aspect of the ocean off the New Jersey coast. This is the COOL Room, the Coastal Ocean Observation Lab, operated by the institute and located at the marine field station in Tuckerton, N.J.
"Here on Earth we live in and around two fluids -- air and water," says Scott Glenn, a physical oceanographer and professor at IMCS. "They're both fluids, one a little thicker than the other, and they're both constantly moving and changing. That change is what we call the weather, and in the COOL Room, we are working to predict the underwater weather."
A national model for the study of coastal oceans, the COOL Room allows scientists to explore New Jersey's coastal waters, both above and below the surface, primarily within an area called LEO-15. The name stands for the Long-Term Ecosystem Observatory placed off the coast at Tuckerton, where the first instruments were deployed in 1992 and linked to shore by fiber-optic cable in 1996. Located 15 meters below the surface of the ocean, LEO-15 is the brainchild of IMCS Director J. Frederick Grassle. Today, the original two nodes, designed to transmit continual information on ocean conditions, have expanded to include dozens of instruments covering thousands of square miles of the sea.
"We had an idea for an underwater weather observatory a lot like those on land," says Grassle. "The COOL Room is becoming increasingly sophisticated and, ultimately, we would like to sense the ocean environment the same way ocean plants and animals experience it."
The COOL Room is command central for the collection and distribution of data from the numerous underwater instruments, as well as from airplanes, ships, satellites and sensors mounted on robotic subs. Once the data is collected, IMCS researchers make it available in real time on the Internet. Fishermen, sailors, swimmers, boaters and even the Coast Guard make use of the information on ocean temperature, color, currents and upwelling events. On Oct. 25, the COOL Room launched its Web site at www.thecoolroom.org, where much of this data is now found. Invasion at Tuckerton
All year long there are research projects going on at LEO, including studies of clams, fish, plankton, temperature trends and chemical deposits in ocean water. But in July the pace accelerates considerably and the focus shifts to coupled physical and biological studies, primarily the study of currents and their effect on phytoplankton.
While it has a way to go before measuring up to the NASA standard, the COOL Room was a hub of exciting activity last summer, when dozens of experiments were being conducted at the field station by some 200 scientists from around the United States. They came from the Office of Naval Research, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, from Scripps Institute of Oceanography and from numerous research centers, colleges, universities and companies. All headed to New Jersey to take advantage of Rutgers' unique combination of researchers, facilities and technology at the Tuckerton station.
On July 5 the invasion of principal investigators, researchers, engineers, scientists, programmers and boat captains began. A caravan arrived with countless computers, endless crates of technical equipment and, every bit as important, large quantities of food. In addition, five satellites, two planes and 13 boats converged at the field station.
Every nook and cranny was marshaled into use, with jury-rigged research and sleeping areas. Teams from around the country shared tight quarters, some not much larger than broom closets. Walking through the field station, scientists had to be careful where they stepped. Cables were strung across paths and down hallways and even dangled from ceilings. Large pieces of submergible equipment sat outside entrances to the building, waiting to be loaded on board one of the many boats moving in and out of the docks behind the facility. What was on the dock one day would be placed on the floor of the ocean the next.
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