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Oceanography and ocean engineering

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Alison Criscitiello PhD '14 summits Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, in May 2016 after ice coring nearby in the Yukon Territory.

For the love of ice: Journeys to the remote and inhospitable

Alison Criscitiello PhD '14 seeks ice cores in inhospitable locations, sometimes camping on ice sheets and sleeping with a shotgun in case of bear attacks.

August 23, 2017

Top row (l-r): James Deng, Jesse Feiman, Jessica Gordon. Bottom row: Jorlyn Le Garrec, Albert Lopez, Jiwon Victoria Park.

Six from MIT awarded 2017 Fulbright grants

Grantees will spend the 2017-2018 academic year conducting research abroad.

August 9, 2017

Microbes atop circuit lines

Phytoplankton and chips

Simons Foundation supports enhanced computer infrastructure for MIT's Darwin Project, which focuses on marine microbes and microbial communities.

August 4, 2017

This image is a combination of cloud data from NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-11) and color land cover classification data. The Intertropical Convergence Zone is the band of bright white clouds that cuts across the center of the Earth.

Understanding tropical rainfall

Study finds ocean circulation, coupled with trade wind changes, efficiently limits shifting of tropical rainfall patterns.

July 28, 2017

$MIT climate scientists have found that the ocean’s export efficiency, or the fraction of total plankton growth that is sinking to its depths, is decreasing, due mainly to rising global temperatures.$

Rising temperatures are curbing ocean’s capacity to store carbon

Study finds large amounts of carbon dioxide, equivalent to yearly U.K. emissions, remain in surface waters.

July 6, 2017

Open Water Power’s battery that "drinks" in sea water to operate is safer and cheaper, and provides a tenfold increase in range, over traditional lithium-ion batteries used for unpiloted underwater vehicles. The power system consists of an alloyed aluminum anode, an alloyed cathode, and an alkaline electrolyte positioned between the electrodes. Components are only activated when flooded with wat...

Batteries that “drink” seawater could power long-range underwater vehicles

Startup’s novel aluminum batteries increase the range of UUVs tenfold.

June 15, 2017

In addition to spit-shooting, an archer fish, pictured here, can launch itself from a near standstill, out of the water to a height of more than two times its body length. “Unlike, say, a shark that comes barreling up from the bottom to catch its prey, an archer fish’s initial momentum is zero,” says Alexandra Techet, associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT.

High-speed images capture archer fish’s rocket-like launch

Insights into the hydrodynamics of the move may improve underwater vehicle design.

April 19, 2017

A map of a seamount in the Arctic Ocean created by gathering data with a multibeam echo sounder. Researchers have found that such topographic features can trap deep waters and produce turbulence.

Underwater mountains help ocean water rise from abyss

Turbulence from seafloor topography may explain longstanding question about ocean circulation.

March 6, 2017

MIT oceanographers have found that some small marine organisms — mostly bacteria — have a surprisingly low limit to the amount of oxygen they need to breathe.

New study sets oxygen-breathing limit for ocean’s hardiest organisms

Bacteria can survive in marine environments that are almost completely starved of oxygen.

December 19, 2016

Joern Callies (left) and Jill McDermott

Joern Callies and Jill McDermott win Carl-Gustaf Rossby Awards for PhD theses

Awards to recent alumni honor the memory of Carl-Gustaf Rossby, a pioneer in earth and atmospheric sciences.

November 4, 2016

MIT Professor Emeritus Ira Dyer

Ira Dyer, professor emeritus of ocean engineering, dies at 91

Former head of MIT's Department of Ocean Engineering is remembered for his innovation, entrepreneurship, and vision for ocean engineering.

October 25, 2016

MIT Professor Raffaele Ferrari has been selected to receive the 2016 Robert L. and Bettie P. Cody Award in Ocean Sciences.

Raffaele Ferrari receives Cody Award in Ocean Sciences

EAPS professor honored for excellence in oceanography.

October 4, 2016

Ocean engineers from MIT, the University of Minnesota at Duluth, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have accurately simulated the motion of internal tides along a shelf break called the Middle Atlantic Bight — a region off the coast of the eastern U.S. that stretches from Cape Cod in Massachusetts to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.

Researchers find explanation for interacting giant, hidden ocean waves

Better simulations of internal tides may benefit sonar communications, protect offshore structures, and more.

September 28, 2016

MIT research scientist Stephanie Dutkiewicz in her office with a display of her phytoplankton model simulation

Computing the ocean’s true colors

Stephanie Dutkiewicz’ phytoplankton models project the future of the ocean as food source and carbon sink.

September 15, 2016

“The ocean has been the only true sink for anthropogenic emissions since the industrial revolution,” says MIT graduate student Sophie Chu, pictured here. “Right now, it stores about 1/4 to 1/3 of the anthropogenic emissions from the atmosphere. We’re expecting at some point the storage will slow down.”

Study finds increased ocean acidification due to human activities

More anthropogenic carbon in the northeast Pacific means weaker shells for many marine species.

September 7, 2016