University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System Research Articles

Development of best practices for scientific research vessel operations in a changing Arctic: A case study for R/V Sikuliaq

Reduced sea ice has made the Arctic Ocean more accessible for vessel traffic. In turn, the heightened interest to better understand rapidly changing sea ice dynamics, ecosystems, and related ocean processes in the Arctic Ocean has led to closer interactions with and the need to avoid potential conflicts between scientific researchers and Indigenous coastal communities. In particular, researchers need to minimize spatial and temporal overlap of science activities with subsistence hunts as the Arctic is essential to Indigenous communities for their food security and cultural heritage. In this regard, a Community and Environmental Compliance Standard Operating Procedure (CECSOP) was recently developed for the R/V Sikuliaq, which is owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences and is part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System. The CECSOP was developed with input and guidance from Alaska Indigenous community groups, state and federal agencies, and sea-going scientists. Here the document's basic principles and procedures are described, as well as its utility in helping guide constructive discussions and interactions between scientific users of R/V Sikuliaq and subsistence hunting communities when research and subsistence hunt activities have spatial and temporal overlap. The CECSOP is a “living” document and subject to future modifications and improvements. It may serve as a model for other scientific, commercial and industrial vessel operators to ensure best practices between subsistence hunting communities and vessel operators in the Arctic.

Institute Profile: The Large Lakes Observatory and the Scientific Study of the Large Lakes of Earth

Institute Profile: The Large Lakes Observatory and the Scientific Study of the Large Lakes of Earth

A University-Government Partnership for Oceanographic Research

After 44 years of coordinating the U.S. academic research fleet and facilities, the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) gears for the future.

UNOLS now oversees research aircraft facilities for ocean science

In recognition of the increasing importance and value of aircraft as observational platforms in oceanographic research, the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) has established the Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Aircraft Research (SCOAR). SCOAR aims to establish procedures for research aircraft that follow the present UNOLS practices for research vessel use, with the goal of making it understandable, and easy, and thus desirable, for oceanographic scientists to utilize research aircraft more.For consistency with the operation of UNOLS ships, this will require UNOLS to designate appropriate research aircraft operating organizations to be National Oceanographic Aircraft Facilities (NOAFs), essentially like institutions that operate one or more UNOLS ships. UNOLS presently has one designated NOAF, the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California.

First‐year performance assessment of SWATH Research Ship

The first small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) design ship in the U.S. academic research vessel fleet, the R/V Kilo Moana (Figure 1), entered service in September 2002. The ship, whose home port is in Honolulu, has been operating with diverse groups of oceanographers on board. Before the ship became operational, the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System Fleet Improvement Committee (UNOLS‐ FIC) decided that it was important to gather fair and representative impressions of the vessel's performance from the first scientists on board. Science mission requirements developed over the past year by UNOLS have all indicated that sea‐keeping is a very high priority: oceano graphers wanted to work comfortably at higher sea states. Just about the only way to achieve this is by using the SWATH design rather than the mono‐hull.

USS DATABASE

The Fleet Improvement Committee (FIC) was established by the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Advisory Council to review the composition and operation of the seagoing fleet used by the U.S. academic research community and to recommend ways to upgrade and improve the future capability of the fleet. FIC activities include development of scientific requirements for future ships, oversight of concept and preliminary designs of these ships, review of current and future mix of ship types in the fleet with respect to envisioned scientific missions, and studies of ways to improve fleet operations. One possible improvement studied briefly by FIC concerns the advantages of computer network‐assisted scheduling of UNOLS ships.There has been long‐standing interest in developing a computer‐assisted scheduling capability for UNOLS ships. Limited experimentation has been done by some ship operators with keeping up‐to‐date lists of ship requests on computer files, and most operators are now submitting current schedules to the bulletin board SHIP.SCHED on the electronic mail system ScienceNet of Omnet.

Conceptual Design of a Medium-Endurance Research Vessel Optimized for Mission Flexibility and Seakeeping

This paper reports on a study to define a large, medium-endurance general-purpose oceangoing ship that can carry out an effective research program in any of the five disciplines (biological, chemical, geological, geophysical, and physical) that characterize modern oceanography. The general requirements specify a vessel of the same size, but of greater capability, than the present large vessels in the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System fleet, carrying a team of about 25 researchers to most areas of the world's ocean in reasonable comfort and providing a platform that will allow more overside and laboratory work in higher sea states than is now possible. Other general requirements discussed herein include flexibility, low noise and vibration levels, and economy. The latter point requires that the emphasis on increased capability does not obscure the need to develop vessels that are economical to construct and operate.

SWATH: Calm seas for oceanography

Members of the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) are scheduled to meet this fall in workshops across the country to review 11 conceptual designs for four classes of vessels. From among these designs, UNOLS hopes to realize, by the mid‐1990s, four new large vessels, the first of the new generation of research ships to usher seagoing oceanography into the 21st century.

A practical motor‐sailing research platform

The oceanographic community is at work on the orderly replacement of its aging fleet. The University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) Fleet Replacement Committee, chaired by Bob Dinsmore, is coordinating the effort, which is now in Phase I and includes studies of eight conceptual designs: two conventional general‐purpose ships, two Small Water Plane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) ships, two specialized geology and geophysics ships, one sail‐assisted ship, and one ship of innovative design. A community‐wide workshop will be held in January, 1985, to report on the progress of Phase I. After this workshop and its reviews, Phase II of the replacement plan will consider detailed design studies for a subset of the eight original concepts.

Research ship plans for 1985”1987

The University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), representing operators of American academic research ships, has established a National Expeditionary Planning Committee to coordinate planning of research ship cruises to remote areas, multi‐ship operations, and operations requiring fixed schedules of work. One essential part of this is to provide predictions of the areas in which the major research ships are likely to operate to make it possible for scientific investigators to do their own planning. This is, of course, a circular process: Some marine scientists have told us of their plans; these have resulted in tentative schedules. We hope that other investigators will fit their plans into these schedules to use the ships more efficiently and to avoid unproductive transit time.

Comment on “Future of the U.S. Academic Research Fleet”

In an appeal for broader government support of the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), Marcus G. Langseth (Eos, 62, 690–691, 1981) has noted that ‘other U.S. agencies, such as … U.S. Geological Survey, etc., which occasionally use the UNOLS fleet, buy time as needed and accept little or no responsibility for the health or composition of the fleet.’ Subsequently, he noted that ‘… there is no organized program to use the remarkable capabilities of multichannel seismic sounding in a systematic way to study fundamental problems of the continental margins…’Precisely because the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is not an occasional user of the UNOLS fleet, we would like to support and extend Langseth's appeal to gain broader based government funding to keep more ships afloat in this important national facility. Also because we have been conducting a well‐organized systematic study of the continental margin of the United States, based mainly on state‐of‐the‐art multichannel seismic data, we support his contention that continental margins of the world should be studied in a similar manner.

Woods Hole chosen as site for first UNOLS office

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been chosen as the site of the first UNOLS (University‐National Oceanographic Laboratory System) office. Developed as a planning and coordinating mechanism for oceanographic research facilities, the organization has as its chairman, Arthur E. Maxwell, Provost of the Oceanographic Institution, and Jay M. Savage of the University of Southern California as its Vice Chairman. R.P. Dinsmore, former Chief of the Marine Sciences Division of the U.S. Coast Guard, has been designated Executive Secretary and will direct the UNOLS office at the Oceanographic Institution.