Jim Thomson is principal oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington. He studies ocean surface waves and coastal processes.
Thursday, Sept. 6
Ansel Adams always said that chance favors the prepared, but these days I wonder how far ahead he looked before taking his photos. Four years ago, my lab at the University of Washington started building a new buoy to measure the turbulence in breaking ocean waves. Now the chance to use it is fast approaching. Preparation is foremost on my mind.
Later this fall, we will embark on a research vessel toward an otherwise random spot in the north Pacific Ocean called Station P, more than 1,000 miles offshore. This station has a long history, with regular water samples from there going back 60 years. We?ll be looking for storms and big waves. If the data we have from the past couple years are any indication, we should see waves more than 10 meters (33 feet) high. The new buoys have been tested only in waves up to three meters high. That?s on my mind too.
It?s not like we?ve been avoiding the bigger waves; in fact, we?ve spent two years looking for them. The new instruments, which we call Swift buoys (for Surface Wave Instrument Floats with Tracking), have logged more than 1,300 hours of water time.
We have broken, battered and crushed all manner of things while trying to get these buoys into the roughest conditions possible. We have even capsized a small boat in the process. Indeed, the boat is part of the problem: To operate in big waves, we need a big boat. We need a global-class research vessel, of which there are only a handful in the United States and which cost $30,000 a day. This fall is our chance to use one of these vessels.
We know the waves in November will be big, because we have been measuring them for the past two years at Station P (usually referred to as Papa, according to the phonetic alphabet) with another type of buoy, called a WaveRider. The WaveRider is a recent addition to the station, one that is part of a larger effort to use the station for climate research. The station is 4,200 meters deep ?about 2.6 miles, a vertical distance equivalent to the average morning jog around the neighborhood ? making moorings, and everything else, difficult. The WaveRider mooring needs to be replaced, and that is the other goal of the trip. Another thing to prepare for.
Preparing involves a lot of incremental tasks. Yesterday was mundane: Joe was spooling mooring line at the warehouse, Alex was assembling a camera system to record waves from the bow of the ship, Mike was processing test data, and I was obsessively checking the satellite feed from the WaveRider (the battery is dying and thus always on my mind). Spare parts, fasteners and batteries were constantly arriving and being sorted according to a giant packing list. The lab was humming along at a reasonable, steady pace, and we were on schedule to go to sea in seven weeks.
Today, however, was not mundane. This morning, the ship coordinator called to say that the ship?s propulsion system had failed (chance?) and the necessary repairs would take the rest of 2012.
I braced for the worst ? we?re being canceled?
?Not yet,? was the reply from the fleet coordinator. Then: ?Let me see what the rest of the fleet has lined up.?
A few hours later, a salvage proposal came back. We could take a smaller vessel, departing three weeks from today, not seven. I said we would take it.
That reasonable, steady pace just left the building. To depart in three weeks means we send a shipping container with our equipment in one week.
Tomorrow, preparing will rapidly turn to packing. By Sept. 26, we will be ready. Then chance will drive the storms, and we will be driving ourselves ? to do more, to sleep less, to stay sharp amid the dark seas, and to make the most of our chance.
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