HIGH-TECH BOTTLES HELP NAVY TO GAUGE OCEAN'S MYSTERIES.Byline: Judie Telfer Monterey County Herald People used to put notes into bottles and toss them in the sea, to see where they would drift. But the process has gotten more precise and the bottles have gotten more expensive. Navy researches are launching 6-foot-long glass cylinders full of automated measuring devices This is an incomplete list of measuring devices. word Measures accelerometer acceleration actinometer heating power of sunlight alcoholometer alcoholic strength of liquids altimeter altitude ammeter electric current, amperage to reveal the secrets of ocean currents and temperatures. ``This is like a bottle designed to sink for a while and then come to the surface,'' said Toby Garfield, a research assistant professor in the Oceanography oceanography, study of the seas and oceans. The major divisions of oceanography include the geological study of the ocean floor (see plate tectonics) and features; physical oceanography, which is concerned with the physical attributes of the ocean water, such as Department of the Naval Postgraduate School The Naval Postgraduate School is a graduate school operated by the United States Navy. Located in Monterey, California, it grants primarily master's degrees plus some doctoral degrees to its students, who are mostly active duty officers from U.S. and foreign military services. . ``But it has a radio in it so doesn't depend on someone finding it.'' Nevertheless, two of the $4,000 implements have been recovered by Oregon fishermen and a third was retrieved by the Coast Guard in Morro Bay. In August 1994, a pair of such floats were put into the Pacific Ocean off San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden to track the northward-flowing deep current known as the California undercurrent. Dubbed dub 1 tr.v. dubbed, dub·bing, dubs 1. To tap lightly on the shoulder by way of conferring knighthood. 2. To honor with a new title or description. 3. ``Nicholas'' and ``Alexandra,'' the drifters were weighted with about a pound of lead shot so they would drift at nearly 5,000 feet below the surface for 900 days. At the end of the ``mission,'' an electrical circuit was programmed to turn on, burn a wire and drop the container of lead shot, so the instrument would bob to the surface. Then the radio could begin to transmit data to a polar-orbiting satellite. ``Nicholas,'' however, popped to the surface after only 550 days and was found April 3 by a fisherman in Port Orford, Ore. In the hope that even more devices will be recovered, Garfield said, he's going to put a stripe stripe - data striping of fluorescent orange tape inside the top of the glass cylinders to make them more visible. Already each device has a label that explains in English, Spanish, French and Chinese that it is not dangerous and that a reward will be paid if it is returned in good condition to the Naval Postgraduate School. Anyone who returns oceanographic equipment to the Navy is eligible for a reward of $100, Garfield said. The devices are considered expendable, he said, because it is not cost-effective to go out on a boat and search for them. But, he said: ``It's nice to get them back. We can do engineering studies on them and they are reusable.'' Oceanographers always thought the deep ocean currents were slow and quiescent quiescent at rest; latent; the G0 stage of the cell cycle. , Garfield said, but they turn out to be faster than expected. On the surface, the floating instruments travel about eight or nine inches per second, he said, while those in the undercurrent move at about an inch a second, or about 1.3 miles a day. ``I was surprised it was that fast,'' Garfield said. ``We were expecting it to be half that or less.'' And, he said, the undercurrent turns out to be full of storms and eddies. While the California current California Current A cold current originating in the northern Pacific Ocean and passing southward and then southwestward along the western coast of North America. , on the surface, flows from north to south, the California undercurrent, adjacent to the continental slope continental slope Seaward border of a continental shelf. The world's combined continental slope is about 200,000 mi (300,000 km) long and descends at an average angle of about 4° from the edge of the continental shelf to the beginning of the ocean basins at depths of , comes from the south, bringing up warmer and saltier salt·y adj. salt·i·er, salt·i·est 1. Of, containing, or seasoned with salt. 2. Suggestive of the sea or sailing life. 3. Witty; pungent; earthy: salty humor. water. ``We're looking at how it gets transferred and how it mixes with the cooler and fresher water from the north,'' Garfield said. So far 36 drifters have been put out, Garfield said, and data have been radioed back by 24 so far. Only one, he said, malfunctioned and was never heard from. Meanwhile, Nicholas' ``mate,'' Alexandra, is still out there, somewhere, gathering information. ``We assume she's still chugging along,'' Garfield said. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion