Oceanography and ocean engineering

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found that a textured surface, designed like a shark riblet, can improve the towed sonar arrays (TSAs) used by ships and submarines, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Utilizing computational modeling, researchers tested various riblet shapes and patterns interacting with simulated water environments,” explains Paul. “From calm currents to the more commonly unpredictable flows seen in oceans, the team observed how smooth, triangular, trapezoidal, and scalloped riblets might affect fluid dynamics and acoustics.”

Prof. Nicholas Makris speaks with USA Today reporter Phaedra Trethan about the oceanic challenges that may impact the search for Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan’s plane. The plane "is lost in the darkens of the ocean,” says Makris. “The sound (from sonar equipment) takes the darkness out, but it’s so far down that, from the surface, it can look like a speck.”

Popular Science reporter Andrew Paul writes that MIT researchers have developed a new long-range, low-power underwater communication system. Installing underwater communication networks “could help continuously measure a variety of oceanic datasets such as pressure, CO2, and temperature to refine climate change modeling,” writes Paul, “as well as analyze the efficacy of certain carbon capture technologies.”

MIT researchers have developed a new two-step electrochemical process to remove carbon dioxide out of seawater, reports John Fialka for E&E News.  The new approach “cuts energy costs and expensive membranes used to collect CO2 to the point where merchant ships that run on diesel power could collect enough CO2 to offset their emissions,” Fialka writes.  

Researchers at MIT developed SoFi, a soft robotic fish designed to study underwater organisms and their environments, reports Mashable. “The soft robotic fish serves a nice purpose for hopefully minimizing impact on the environments that we’re studying and also helps us study different types of behaviors and also study the actual mechanics of these organisms as well,” says graduate student Levi Cai.

Prof. Fadel Adib speaks with CBC Radio about his lab’s work developing a wireless, battery-free underwater camera that runs on sound waves. "We want to be able to use them to monitor, for example, underwater currents, because these are highly related to what impacts the climate," says Adib. "Or even underwater corals, seeing how they are being impacted by climate change and how potentially intervention to mitigate climate change is helping them recover."

Prof. Wanying Kang and her colleagues have found that “the way ice covers the surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus suggests that the oceans trapped beneath it may be only a little less salty than Earth’s oceans,” reports By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan for New Scientist. “The researchers found that saltier subsurface oceans correspond to thicker ice on a planet’s poles than over its equator and vice versa for less salty water,” writes Padavic-Callaghan.

A campaign led by RRS Discovery, and Prof. Raffaele Ferrari has found that deep-ocean water rises due to the turbulence created by undersea mountains, reports Paul Voosen for Science. “The turbulence that was found tended to grow with depth. Like a spoon stirring milk into coffee, it was driving water down, not up, says Ferrari,” writes Voosen.

Researchers from MIT and Princeton University have found that flooding events will become much more common by the end of the century, especially in New England, reports Evan Bush for NBC. “The researchers used computer modeling to stimulate thousands of ‘synthetic’ hurricanes toward the end of this century and in a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions are very high,” writes Bush.

National Geographic reporter Sadie Dingfelder writes that MIT scientists are using piezoelectric materials to develop a battery-free, underwater navigation system. “There are a lot of potential applications,” says Prof. Fadel Adib. “For instance, a scuba diver could use these sensors to figure out the exact place they took a particular picture.”

Reuters reporter Andrea Januta writes that using computer models Prof. Kerry Emanuel has found that hurricanes in the North Atlantic have been growing in intensity and frequency as global temperatures have increasing. Emanuel “turned to computer simulations to recreate climate conditions for the last 150 years. Using three different climate models, he then scattered hurricane “seeds,” or conditions that could produce a storm, throughout the models to see how many seeds developed into storms,” writes Januta.

A new study by Prof. Kerry Emanuel examining the history of hurricanes finds that North Atlantic hurricanes are increasing in frequency and intensity, write Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow for The Washington Post. Emanuel “employed a novel approach to evaluate past storm activity,” they write. “Rather than relying on historical observations, which may have gaps, he performed climate modeling to reconstruct a continuous record of hurricane activity over the past 150 years from which to gauge trends.”

Writing for Pointe Magazine, Grace Young ’14 explores how her background in ballet taught her many of the skills that she currently uses as an engineer. Young emphasizes that as dancer she quickly learned the importance of practicing, a skill she applied as a student at MIT. “If it weren’t for ballet,” she writes, “I’m not sure I would appreciate all the work that goes into making science and engineering skills look effortless.”

Research scientist Allan Adams speaks with PBS NewsHour reporter Isabella Isaacs-Thomas about the underwater robot he and his colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute developed to explore the mysteries of the ocean. “We [designed the radiometer] because we really want to see, how does the light interact with the biology?," says Adams. "How does the light drive — and not drive — the biological dynamics of this massive migration?”

Inside Science reporter Tom Metcalfe writes that MIT researchers have developed a new method for taking the Earth’s temperature by examining basaltic rocks, and used the method to create a model of the Earth's oceanic ridges. "We are constantly stressing how [plate] tectonics operated in the past," says postdoc Stephanie Brown Krein. "And so I think it's really important for us to be able to understand how tectonics are working in the present day.”