Collaborative Research: An open, platform-agnostic sediment trap controller and imaging sensor

协作研究：开放的、与平台无关的沉积物捕获控制器和成像传感器

• 批准号: 2220278
• 负责人: Melissa Omand
• 金额: $ 25.59万
• 依托单位: University of Rhode Island
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2220278&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; open; platform; agnostic

The ocean naturally moves carbon produced by living organisms from the atmosphere to deep water, and this plays an important role in how Earth’s climate may respond to increasing amounts of carbon dioxide. Additionally, some have proposed attempting to intentionally accelerate this process in an effort to reverse human carbon dioxide emissions. However, teasing apart the different biological influences that drive sinking carbon remains a major challenge. The tools that are required to measure sinking carbon are often expensive and specialized, limiting their accessibility. In this project, a camera-equipped sediment trap that catches and identifies sinking particles will be developed, tested, and refined. It will utilize openly shared software, and hardware designs that are based upon commercially-available components, to enable easier adoption by other researchers. This project will also provide opportunities for mentoring and training to a graduate student and undergraduate summer students, and would support an early-career researcher.The biological carbon pump, which delivers organic carbon into the ocean’s interior, has received focused scientific attention for decades because it maintains the ocean’s vertical dissolved inorganic carbon gradient, and is closely linked to global climate via exchange of carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. Ongoing anthropogenic impacts on the ocean may drive future changes in the efficiency of the biological carbon pump, which would have important climate implications. Intentionally increasing the input of biological carbon into the ocean, either through nutrient fertilization or biomass injection, is also proposed as a candidate method to increase ocean carbon sequestration. The development of widely-available tools for measuring sinking organic matter fluxes is therefore of great importance. The first objective of this project is to develop and test a sediment trap controller that would simplify the construction and deployment of neutrally-buoyant sediment traps based upon commercially-available profiling floats, thus broadening the potential user base of such traps. The second objective is to integrate with the trap controller a low-cost, upward-looking in situ camera to image sinking particles. Characterizing this camera’s laboratory and field performance under a variety of platform hydrodynamic conditions, and developing software for onboard data reduction, will lay the groundwork for its use to quantify sinking carbon fluxes aboard autonomous platforms. Finally, recognizing that the lower mesopelagic zone (defined here as 500-1000 m) is critical to observations of biological carbon sequestration over long timescales, the third project objective is to optimize these tools for use at these typically under-sampled depths.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

海洋自然地将生物体产生的碳从大气层转移到深水中，这在地球气候如何应对不断增加的二氧化碳量方面发挥着重要作用。 此外，一些人提议有意加速这一过程，以扭转人类二氧化碳排放。然而，梳理推动碳沉降的不同生物影响仍然是一个重大挑战。测量碳沉降所需的工具往往昂贵且专业化，限制了其可获得性。 在该项目中，将开发、测试和改进一种配备摄像机的沉积物捕集器，用于捕获和识别沉降颗粒。 它将利用开放共享的软件和基于商用组件的硬件设计，以便其他研究人员更容易采用。 该项目还将为一名研究生和暑期本科生提供指导和培训机会，并将支持一名早期职业研究人员。生物碳泵将有机碳输送到海洋内部，几十年来一直受到科学界的关注，因为它维持了海洋垂直溶解无机碳梯度，并通过与大气交换二氧化碳与全球气候密切相关。 人类对海洋的持续影响可能会导致生物碳泵效率的未来变化，这将对气候产生重要影响。 有意增加生物碳输入海洋，无论是通过营养施肥或生物质注入，也被提议作为一个候选方法，以增加海洋碳封存。 因此，开发广泛可用的测量下沉有机物通量的工具至关重要。该项目的第一个目标是开发和测试沉积物收集器控制器，以简化基于商用剖面浮标的中性浮力沉积物收集器的建造和部署，从而扩大此类收集器的潜在用户群。 第二个目标是与阱控制器集成一个低成本的、向上看的原位照相机来对下沉颗粒进行成像。 表征该相机在各种平台水动力条件下的实验室和现场性能，并开发用于机载数据处理的软件，将为其用于量化自主平台上的下沉碳通量奠定基础。 最后，认识到中层下层（此处定义为500-1000米）对于长期观测生物固碳至关重要，第三个项目目标是优化这些工具，以便在这些通常不足的地方使用，采样深度。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并且通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.