The Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT): Sustaining ocean ecosystem and climate observations in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个新的奖项将支持夏威夷海洋时间序列（HOT）研究计划的领导下，马修·丘奇博士，一个恒星的年轻科学家，为期4年（2009年8月至2013年7月）。夏威夷大学将成为整个HOT项目的中心，与俄勒冈州州立大学、斯克里普斯海洋学研究所、伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所和蒙大拿州州立大学的研究人员合作，完成这一重要研究，研究世界海洋中央环流气候变化中所经历的海洋地球化学、生态和物理过程的变化。作为NSF全球气候和环境变化组合中的一个项目，这项跨学科研究将包括探索和记录海洋碳循环的动态，海洋pH值的变化以及这种“酸化”对生态系统的影响。“该项目依靠每月的船上和近乎连续的系泊平台测量来记录海洋特性和过程随时间尺度的变化，时间尺度从半日到十年不等。自1988年以来，在大卫卡尔博士的领导下，许多科学家团队在ALOHA站研究了海洋生态系统和气候变化（22° 45 'N，158°W）在北太平洋副热带环流（NPSG）。早期HOT研究的特点是增加了对海洋地球化学循环对大规模海洋-气候相互作用的敏感性的理解，明显改善了对海洋碳和相关元素的水库和通量的量化，确定了北太平洋水文循环的变化如何影响海洋物理学和海洋地球化学，以及建立评估和预测海洋生态系统未来气候扰动所需的长期数据集。在为HOT研究计划准备这一新奖项的过程中，研究人员与更广泛的海洋学界合作，以澄清和发展HOT计划的长期目标。 物理海洋学部分将与海洋地球化学/生态系统部分明确结合起来，总体工作将集中在夏威夷大学，同时通过分奖项保留研究核心内容所需的多学科专门知识。 这一新的奖项将使科学家团队能够追求海洋生态和海洋地球化学过程的新研究问题，同时保持持续评估海洋碳和营养物库和通量，物理气候，浮游生物群落结构，生态系统生产力，颗粒物通量和固有光学特性所需的高质量测量套件。新奖项将提高该计划数据集的价值，以研究低频气候信号，如与厄尔尼诺/南方涛动（ENSO）和太平洋十年期涛动（PDO）相关的信号，如何影响NPSG的生态栖息地结构。这些努力将继续有助于预测未来生境扰动如何影响NPSG中的生态系统动态所需的正在进行的生物地球化学和数值海洋环流模型。教育、推广和培训将在HOT计划活动中发挥重要作用。巡航，收集的新数据，以及时间序列的历史背景，为来自夏威夷和世界各地的高中，本科，研究生和博士后学生和教师提供了一个独特的学习平台。每月一次的HOT游轮为学生和教师提供短期（4天）的机会，以获得第一手的海洋和气候科学。新的HOT奖将支持2名研究生和2名本科生研究人员，与HOT科学家合作并获得分析时间序列数据集的经验。他们还将发展宝贵的海洋取样和实验室技能，因为他们追求自己的科学项目。此外，这个HOT项目及其人员将帮助支持许多其他独立海洋科学家的研究，他们可以依靠该计划的基础设施（船舶设施，实验室，设备）在丰富的理解和环境数据收集框架内进行自己独立资助的研究。HOT项目的数据在互联网上很容易获得和免费提供。例如，政府间气候变化专门委员会最近将热带海洋表层二氧化碳和pH值记录列入了第四次评估报告。有了这个新的奖项，热将建立一个更强大的合作伙伴关系与中心微生物海洋学：研究和教育（C-MORE），一个国家科学基金会资助的科学和技术中心在夏威夷大学。C-MORE为与HOT合作的科学、教育和研究培训机会提供补充性基础设施和科学方法，包括与旨在吸引妇女和代表性不足的伦理团体参与科学的项目建立联系。例如，HOT科学家将通过CMORE学者计划指导本土夏威夷血统的本科生。此外，HOT的科学家和工作人员将参加CMORE的海上教师计划，该计划为当地高中教师提供参加每月HOT游轮的机会。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This new award will support the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) research program under the leadership Dr. Matthew Church, a stellar young scientist, for a 4 year period (August 2009-July 2013). The University of Hawaii will be the nexus for the entire HOT project, working with investigators at Oregon State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and Montana State University to accomplish this important research on the changing biogeochemical, ecological and physical oceanographic processes being experienced in the changing climate of central gyres of the world's oceans. A project in NSF's portfolio on global climate and environmental change, this interdisciplinary research will include the exploration and documentation of the dynamics of the ocean's carbon cycle, the changing pH of the ocean, and the impacts on ecosystems of this "acidification." The project relies on monthly shipboard and near-continuous moored platform measurements to document variability in ocean properties and processes over time scales ranging from semi-diurnal to decadal.Since 1988, and under the leadership of Dr. David Karl, many teams of scientists have examined ocean ecosystem and climate variability at Station ALOHA (22°45'N, 158°W) in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG). Hallmarks of the earlier HOT research are an increased understanding of the sensitivity of biogeochemical cycling to large scale ocean-climate interactions, markedly improved quantification of the reservoirs and fluxes of ocean carbon and associated elements, identification of how changes to the North Pacific hydrological cycle influence ocean physics and biogeochemistry, and the creation of long-term data sets needed for assessing and predicting future climate perturbations on the ocean ecosystem. In preparing for this new award for the HOT research program, the investigators have worked with the broader oceanographic community to clarify and evolve the long-term objectives of the HOT program. There will be the explicit integration of the physical oceanographic components with the biogeochemical/ecosystem parts, and the overall effort will be centralized at the University of Hawaii while retaining the necessary multidisciplinary expertise for core elements of the research via sub-awards. This new award will allow the teams of scientists to pursue new research questions on ocean ecological and biogeochemical processes, while maintaining the high quality suite of measurements required for continued assessment of dynamics in ocean carbon and nutrient pools and fluxes, physical climate, plankton community structure, ecosystem productivity, particulate matter fluxes, and inherent optical properties. The new award will enhance the value of the program dataset for examining how low-frequency climate signals such as those associated with El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) influence the ecological habitat structure of the NPSG. Such efforts will continue to aid on-going biogeochemical and numerical ocean circulation models required for predicting how future habitat perturbations may influence ecosystem dynamics in the NPSG. Education, outreach, and training will play an important role in the HOT program activities. The cruises, the new data collected, and the historical context of the time-series provides a unique learning platform for high school, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students and teachers from Hawaii and around the world. The monthly HOT cruises provide short-duration (4 day) opportunities for students and teachers to gain first-hand exposure to ocean and climate sciences. The new HOT award will support 2 graduate and 2 undergraduate student researchers, working with HOT scientists and gaining experience analyzing time series datasets. They will also develop valuable oceanographic sampling and laboratory skills as they pursue their own scientific projects. In addition, this HOT project and its people will help support the research of numerous other independent ocean scientists who can rely on the program's infrastructure (ship facilities, laboratories, equipment) to conduct their own independently funded research within a rich framework of understanding and environmental data collection. The data of the HOT project are readily accessible and freely available on the Internet. For example, the HOT surface carbon dioxie and pH records were recently included in the Fourth Assessment Report by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change. With this new award, HOT will forge a stronger partnership with the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE), an NSF-funded Science and Technology Center at the University of Hawaii. C-MORE provides complementary infrastructure and scientific approaches for collaborative science, education and research training opportunities with HOT, including connections to programs designed to entrain women and under-represented ethic groups in the sciences. For example, HOT scientists will mentor undergraduate students of Native Hawaii ancestry through the CMORE Scholars program. In addition, HOT scientists and staff will participate in CMORE's Teacher-at Sea program that offers local area high school teachers opportunities to participate in the monthly HOT cruises.