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Sometimes you can't simulate
natural conditions in the lab,

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so what you do is you take your
lab to see so you can measure

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natural communities and natural
conditions that you can't get in

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the lab.

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This project that were doing on
the Atlantis is not an isolated

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event.

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it's part of a
much bigger picture.

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we have satellites that are
involved in this project, we

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have to work that's done on this
ship, modelers, and it's all the

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different components that
bring the whole story together.

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You can't necessarily do a whole
global science project from a

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single standpoint.

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Every element is critical to
coming up with the answers

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that you're looking for.

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The project were involved in
is called NAAMES, as you know.

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It involves for field
campaigns, not just this one.

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Each one is targeting a specific
time of year, a specific set of

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events in the ocean as
well as the atmosphere.

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We are leaving a little bit of
us behind on each one of these

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cruises.

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We have what are known as
drifters and we deploy those at

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different locations in the North
Atlantic here and those drifters

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will follow a piece of
water here for up to two years.

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Those give us essentially a
breadcrumb trail so we can leave

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a spot but essentially keep
our eye on it for many months

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afterwards.

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We do that with the satellites.

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The floats are telling us where
that water masses moving and the

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satellites are telling us
what's happening in that water.

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We are also deploying what's
called floats which, ironically,

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sink.

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They go up and down through the
water column and they can often

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stay in a single spot for a
couple of years and they take

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measurements continuously up and 
down through the water column

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looking at the biology, looking
at the chemistry and the optics

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and that continues to give us
data about what's happening

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with those ecosystems that we
studied on the ship and the left

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behind.

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The information that we can get
from these robots, as you might

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call them, is very limited, and
the questions that we're asking

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require an lot more detail about
how the system is functioning.

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The ship goes out and
it's really digging into the

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mechanisms about how
those ecosystems work.

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relating those mechanisms to
the properties, the limited

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properties that we can actually
measure with the robots or

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measure with the airplane or
measure with the satellites.

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it's an integrated system.

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Your taking the assets you can
do remotely and from space and

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linking them to mechanisms and
processes that we reveal or 

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uncover on ship measurements.

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You know, the NAAMES project
kind of started from space and

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worked its way down to the
ocean, which is not often

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the case.

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One of the reasons, as I
mentioned, that the field

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research is really important is
because it provides a level of detail

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that we can't get from
robots and from satellites.

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There's a lot of
detail in there.

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The satellite data will kind
of kick this off was looking at

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the full annual cycle of the
plankton, bringing up some ideas

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that we was kind of contrary to
what we had thought was driving

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blooms.

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There are elements of it
that seem to be reasonably 

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predictable.

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There are elements that
seem to be more chaotic.

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We have some canonical views of
the North Atlantic bloom,

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for example.

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generally, for example, when you
get to the climax, the peak of

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the bloom, the biomass tends to
be dominated by a specific group

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of phytoplankton, called diatoms.

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Earlier in the year we think of 
it being dominated by smaller

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organisms—flagellated
phytoplankton.

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But then sometimes you can come
out here and get to the peak and

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it's not diatoms.
Why was that?

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And if you look in shorter 
timescales, you can see a lot of

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variability and shorter timescales.

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Things are less predictable, at
least with our current sest knowledge

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of the system.

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Hopefully we can say something
more intelligent about that as

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we move into the future.

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The other thing is that a lot of
our kind of canonical statements

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about the bloom— if you dig
a little deeper they're not

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very fulfilling.

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In many cases, or in the most
years, you might say that

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bloom climax is dominated by
diatoms but not all diatoms are

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in the climax.

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So why is it that you started
the year in the winter with

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hundreds of species of
diatoms and only a few end up

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dominating? They're all
diatoms, so why is that?

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How reproducible is that?

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There are levels of predictability
and apparently, some sort of level of

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at least with their current
understanding of chaos.

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A lot of times we think about
what controls phytoplankton

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growth in the ocean as being
largely driven by light and nutrients

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and the things they
need to divide, right?

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But if you look at the
bloom, the actual development of

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biomass, there's a very very
important term in there that has

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nothing to do with light or nutrients.

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It's "who's eating them".

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If you have viruses or
these little animals called

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zooplankton targeting a specific
type of phytoplankton, they'll

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knock them out while some other
ones have an of advantage, so

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it's the complexities of the
ecosystem that probably are very

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influential on what appears to
be more of a chaotic aspect of

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the bloom.

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For many years in the history of
oceanography, the tools that we

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had to look at species diversity
were relatively coarse.

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There are organisms that look
very similar but may be very

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different species.

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With the explosion of genomics,
or the "omics" era, we are

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starting to see a level of
diversity that we had no sense

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of and at this point in time
it's becoming just exploratory.

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You take another sample
and you find new species.

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Your question, "have they always
been there?": I don't know.

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Are they always evolving?

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Of course, organisms are always
evolving and over long enough

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time span of periods

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you'll get new species—that's
just one of the normal processes

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of evolution.

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We are in an era of oceanography
we're just categorizing the

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diversity that's out there
because we have these new tools

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is kind of where we are at.

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Simple questions,
tough ones to answer.

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One thought that came to mind is that
as you saying that move along in a

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career you start expanding all
of the things you can use, from

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microscopic work to satellites.

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For me, the most important thing
for me to recognize is that I'm

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not going to be the
expert in most of it.

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it's bringing in the people who
are the experts and making that

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possible. That's why when you look at
this ship and its crew we've got

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people from NASA centers, we've
got people from NOAA, we've got

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people from all the different
national agencies, and all kinds

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of universities, so it's the
team that makes this happen, not

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a single individual. A single individual
can come up with the question,

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but answering the question requires 
a lot of expertise, a lot of different

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people, and that is really one
of the very exciting parts of

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this project, bringing all
of these pieces together.

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And another aspect of it that's
real fun for me is that it's a

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very interdisciplinary project.

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We're not just bringing
in oceanographers who are

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biologists, bringing in
oceanographers who are physicists.

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We have a guy here who's
studying white sharks.

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We of course have aerosol
scientists, and people who link

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what's in the ocean to aerosols.

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And a piece we haven't
talked about is the airplane.

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We've got instruments on this
airplane and experts in that

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type of work who are linking
to the ship, so it's a very

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exciting mission just 
in the sense of the

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breath of the interdisciplinary
work that's being done.