Join us next Saturday October 26, 2024 for the Discover UH Mānoa Open House. SOEST will have a variety of hands-on activities and demonstrations to share our exciting research; and information on our academic opportunities!
The whole campus is participating in this event so you can engage with faculty and staff from many departments, meet current students, experience campus tours, hear music performances, and so much more!
From our academic programs to research discoveries and opportunities and student services — there is something for everyone!
For more information and to register for the event, visit discovermanoa.org
Atmospheric blocking events are persistent, high-impact weather patterns that occur when large-scale high-pressure systems become stationary and divert the jet stream and storm tracks for days to weeks, and can be associated with record-breaking flooding or heat waves, such as in Europe in 2023. In a new study, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa atmospheric scientist Christina Karamperidou used a deep learning model to infer the frequency of blocking events over the past 1,000 years and shed light on how future climate change may impact these significant phenomena.
“This study set out to extract a paleoweather signal from paleoclimate records using a deep learning model that infers atmospheric blocking frequency from surface temperature,” said Karamperidou. “This is a unique study and the first attempt to reconstruct a long record of blocking frequencies based on their relationship with surface temperature, which is complex and unknown. Machine learning methods can be very powerful for such tasks.”
Training the deep learning model
Karamperidou developed a specialized deep learning model, which she trained using historical data and large ensembles of climate model simulations. The model was then capable of inferring the frequency of blocking events from anomalies in seasonal temperature reconstructions over the Last Millennium. These past temperature reconstructions are relatively well-constrained by extensive networks of tree-ring records sensitive to temperature during the growing season.
“This approach demonstrates that deep learning models are powerful tools to overcome the long-standing problem of extracting paleoweather from paleoclimate,” said Karamperidou. “This approach can also be used for the instrumental period of climate history, which began in the 18th century when routine weather measurements were made, since we only have reliable data to identify blocking since the 1940s, or possibly only the satellite era (post-1979).”
Frequency of future blocking events
There isn’t yet a scientific consensus regarding how climate change will change the frequency of blocking events. These strong, persistent mid-latitude high-pressure systems can have significant impacts for Hawai‘i, where flooding has accompanied persistent North Pacific blocks, and also worldwide, for example, in the Pacific Northwest and Europe, where summertime blocking can bring extreme heat waves.
So understanding changes in the frequency of these events, especially as they relate to the other big players for climate, such as El Niño and the long-term patterns of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, is very important for Hawai‘i. This study allowed Karamperidou to relate blocking frequencies in the mid- and high-latitudes to tropical Pacific climate variability in the long context of the last millennium, which is essential for climate model validation and to narrow down uncertainties in future climate projections of blocking.
Atmospheric blocking events can bring record-breaking rains to Hawai’i. Credit: Jason Miller via Unsplash.
Open research and transparency
Karamperidou worked with two UH Mānoa students to create a unique web-interface to explore the deep learning model and the resulting reconstructions. She highlighted that sharing results and methods in this way is important for Open Research best practices and transparency, especially as the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence expands rapidly into many aspects of daily life. The web-interface is hosted on Jetstream-2, an NSF-supported cloud computing system whose regional partners include the University of Hawai‘i Information Technology Services – Cyberinfrastructure and the Hawai‘i Data Science Institute.
In the future, Karamperidou plans to explore a range of features and architectural enhancements of the deep learning model to expand its applications for climate phenomena and variables directly related to high socioeconomic impacts.
In a first-of-its-kind effort, a 3-meter long blue shark in the Atlantic Ocean is aiding researchers with a highly sophisticated sensor that provides oceanographic data in real time. The study is led by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) Research Professor Kim Holland together with colleagues at the University of the Azores. This was part of an expanding “Sharks as Oceanographers Program” funded by the Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System.
The bathygraph (a graph of the relationship between depth and temperature) tag enables the shark to record ocean temperature as it roves the water column and transmit the data via satellite when it resurfaces. Researchers can access the data in near real time, and the tags are designed to fall off after roughly four months.
“The bathygraph tags are an example of the increasingly sophisticated animal telemetry tools that are available to scientists,” said Holland. “These tags are now able to tell us not only where the animal is, but they can also describe the environment that it is experiencing. In the future this will include parameters such as oxygen content and plankton density.”
The most recent shark to be tagged in Hawaiʻi was a 4.2-meter long tiger shark in September 2024 near Kāneʻohe Bay. It is now 280 miles away at Nihoa Island and provides a steady stream of temperature and depth profiles.
Sharks gather interesting findings
The data from both sharks is already yielding some surprising results.
“An unexpected result from the tracking experiments is how deep these supposedly coastal, or surface-oriented species, dive,” said Holland. “Both the tiger and blue sharks regularly dive to over 500 meters, where the water is much colder than at the surface.”
Tracking experiments offer a sense of “instant gratification” because the animal’s movements and the associated oceanographic data can be viewed in near-real time.
“The blue shark is now 300 miles south of where we tagged it [in the Azores], and it has already produced over 70 temperature/depth profiles,” said Holland. “So we have two sharks simultaneously in two oceans, providing critical habitat information and high quality oceanographic data.”
The HIMB Shark Research Lab will continue its efforts to provide year-round data on ocean structure in Hawaiʻi, and it plans to expand its work to include different species—including blue sharks in Hawaiʻi.
During her undergraduate years, Prajna Jandial took the opportunity to engage in machine learning and marine biology through an internship in Massachusetts, marking a pivotal moment that ignited her passion for ocean exploration. During this internship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), she applied machine learning techniques to characterize animal behavior, focusing on understanding how squid respond to noise and its impact on the movement of a group of squid, called a shoal.
With a background in electrical and electronics engineering from her bachelor’s degree in India, Prajna has transitioned to Ocean and Resources Engineering at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology in her pursuit of ocean-related endeavors. The allure of UH Mānoa for Prajna lies in its flexibility and the unique opportunity to delve into oceanography at the Master’s level, a rare offering in many academic institutions. While Prajna has had diverse experiences in research such as developing an underwater robot, and working in virtual reality and machine learning, it was the six months spent in Massachusetts at WHOI that solidified her desire to work in the marine environment.
Since being a kid she has had a connection to the ocean and the outdoors. For Prajna, she remembers spending a lot of time watching documentaries with her dad, and also remembers liking how the people on the show got to “go to all these cool environments and see all this cool wildlife.” Where many people would dive into marine biology or other related fields, Prajna asserts that she loves being able to engage in the “tech side of things, and talk in numbers.” “I am not the smartest person in the room but I like numbers,” she states.
Developing an algorithm for underwater robots
Prajna’s research now centers around developing an algorithm for underwater robots to explore and capture the myriad sound signatures in designated areas. Her algorithm is a survey tool to capture all of the different sound signatures of a designated area underwater. aiming to revolutionize underwater sampling methods. Unlike static methods that follow predetermined paths, Prajna’s adaptive survey assessment algorithm responds to unique sound signatures, identifying areas of interest for further investigation. The goal is to create a comprehensive method that can capture diverse sounds in a given area, enabling applications such as tracking marine life and monitoring protected areas. She notes that different noises underwater including animals and boats have unique sound signatures, including features like hydrothermal vents.
“Ocean and sounds are so related but we don’t really realize this,” she states. The goal is to develop a method that can collect all the unique sounds in a given area or “follow a pod of whales, or find hydrothermal vents on the seafloor.”
Currently the decision making process of her algorithm uses sound pressure waves to identify areas of interest, similar to volume. Using this as a point of interest the robot can then go and investigate the sounds in that direction.
Prajna Jandial on the research vessel Oscar Sette.
Another interesting aspect of Prajna’s work is how she has to develop computer code for shallow water and deep water. Since sound is a wave, there are different acoustic effects that change how sound is reflected on the surface and bottom of the ocean. Researchers in marine acoustics, and fields that use waves of any kind, have to take into account the different effects of shallow versus deep water but also the turbulence of the water as well since these all change how waves move in the ocean medium.
Supportive working environment, encouraging others
One thing she finds special about her experience is the opportunity to work with two female principal investigators — one in the Department of Ocean and Resources Engineering and the other in the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. Being in engineering and not having an opportunity to work with an all female team before, she says she really appreciates “the feminine perspective, it gives me the comfort to be insane and to try insane things.” She continues, “There is comfort in an all female team that provides strategies for burnout and emphasizes the importance of mental health”.
Looking ahead, Prajna remains open to diverse opportunities. Upon completing her algorithm, potential paths include pursuing a Ph.D. or collaborating with a team willing to implement her algorithm on an underwater robot. When asked for advice to undergraduate students, she encourages them with a familiar yet elegant phrase: “Don’t self reject.” Prajna emphasizes the significance of reaching out to professors and taking chances, highlighting that the worst outcome is a non-response to an email inquiry.
If you traverse some of Hawaiʻi’s shorelines (specifically Oʻahu’s south and east shores, parts of Maui and Hilo) and notice seaweed in the water, chances are they could be invasive and not native species. And this could have an adverse effect on the seafood we eat to the health of coral reefs.
Botanists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have uncovered key survival strategies used by invasive seaweed species in nearshore ecosystems, potentially explaining their dominance over native Hawaiian limu in certain habitats. Nearshore ecosystems extend up to 300 feet offshore, encompassing the shallow coastal waters where land and ocean environments interact and many marine species live and feed.
Closeup of invasive gorilla ogo
An October 2024 study published in Scientific Reports found that invasive species such as “gorilla ogo” and “spiny seaweed” thrive in areas with submarine groundwater discharge, where daily tidal cycles create extreme salinity (salt level) fluctuations.
“Understanding how invasive seaweed outcompetes native limu is crucial to furthering our knowledge about reefs and ocean environments,” said Veronica Gibson, a postdoctoral researcher at the UH Mānoa Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology and Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve, and UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences PhD graduate. “These spring-fed coastal areas are unique ecosystems that connect our land use practices directly to ocean health, and what happens to limu—which forms the base of our marine food web—affects everything from the fish we catch to the overall health of our coral reefs.”
Advanced techniques
Closeup of invasive spiny seaweed
The research team used advanced plant biology techniques to study how different seaweed species cope with these harsh conditions. Their key method involved measuring how seaweed cells adjust their internal chemistry when exposed to changing salt levels in the water.
Much like a dried grape swells in water, seaweed cells react to changes in their environment. The scientists found that successful species can quickly change the concentration of dissolved substances inside their cells to match external changes. This ability to regulate internal water pressure is crucial for survival. Seaweed species that can’t adjust quickly enough suffer severe damage—their cells either burst from taking in too much water or shrivel up from losing too much water.
The invasive species showed remarkable adaptability and developed other survival tactics. Both types showed thinner cell walls in spring-affected areas, while gorilla ogo displayed peak photosynthesis near freshwater springs and developed smaller cells to better handle stress.
Native species, including limu maneʻoneʻo, were notably absent from spring-influenced areas despite showing similar cellular characteristics to invasive species in offshore environments.
The findings come as human activity continues to impact watershed systems and submarine groundwater discharge. Submarine groundwater discharge occurs when fresh water from underground aquifers seeps or flows directly into the ocean through the seafloor, creating areas where fresh and saltwater mix near the shore.
Researchers emphasize the importance of understanding how native species survive in these conditions as changes in water quality and quantity affect nearshore ecosystems, potentially influencing food webs and coral cover. Further research will focus on native limu tolerance and linking findings to watershed management strategies, particularly in areas affected by nutrient pollution from groundwater springs.
Other authors on the paper are Angelene Dedloff, who earned her bachelor’s degree from the UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences; Kapiʻolani Community College Assistant Professor Lisa Miller; and UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences Professor Celia Smith.
Gregory Moore, Emeritus Professor in the SOEST Department of Earth Sciences, was honored by the Geological Society of Japan as the first recipient of the Akiho Miyashiro Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to our understanding of the geological structures and tectonics in the Nankai Trough and the training of researchers.
“I am truly honored to have received this prestigious award because so many of my Japanese colleagues joined together to nominate me,” said Moore. “I have greatly enjoyed my 40 years of collaborative work with them and look forward to many more future projects.”
For over 45 years, Moore has been mapping the structure and stratigraphy of deep sea trenches, subduction zones, mud volcanoes around the world, including around Japan, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Taiwan, Oregon in North America, Barbados, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. He was a UH Mānoa professor from 1989 to 2020 and was previously an associate professor at the University of Tulsa and assistant research geologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Moore began a decades-long investigation of the Nankai Trough subduction zone in 1987 on a joint cruise with colleagues from Tokyo University and the University of Texas and collaborative analyses of seismic data collected by Japanese colleagues.
One of the most noteworthy research results is the Japan-US joint study of the structure of the Nankai Trough accretionary prism, based on the analysis of core samples from seafloor drilling by International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and other seafloor drilling projects. Moore’s analysis of these samples clearly illustrated the structure of the modern accretionary prism, including the 3D geological structure of the plate boundary and faults at the subducting plate and the seafloor, for the first time in the world.
In the award citation, the Geological Society of Japan noted, “Professor Moore has demonstrated leadership in collaborative research with many Japanese researchers in the study of the geological structure and tectonics of convergent boundaries by depicting the detailed geological structure of modern accretionary prisms around the Nankai Trough. He has also contributed to the training of young Japanese researchers and played an important role in the international recognition of research on modern accretionary prisms in Japan.”
While the urgent reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions is needed to curb climate change, there is broad agreement by the scientific community for the need to remove CO2 already in the atmosphere. An article published in Frontiers in Climate, by an international team of researchers, including two University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa oceanographers, explains the need to assess the potential of ocean iron fertilization (OIF) as a low-cost, scalable and rapidly deployable method of marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR).
“Open ocean iron addition experiments have been done before and we know that this might not work at the scale needed to meaningfully reduce atmospheric CO2,” said Angelicque White, a UH oceanography professor. “Inaction however is not a path forward, and it is far deadlier than any open ocean OIF. The climate crisis cannot be ignored, and Hawaiʻi has already been impacted—sea level rise, ocean acidification and ocean warming are all pressures we feel close to home. Rational, ethical, responsible and transparent science is needed to determine if mCDR will buy us time; assuming of course that we also reduce emissions.”
OIF is a technique that adds small amounts of iron, an essential element for life, to the ocean’s surface to promote the growth of marine plants, or phytoplankton. This growth removes CO2 from the atmosphere, and as plankton die or are eaten, transfers some of that carbon as sinking particles for storage in the deep ocean. While large amounts of iron naturally enter the ocean, OIF is an effort that could speed up that process.
“We still have a lot to learn about what happens if we add iron to the ocean—how long will it remain in ocean water, what kinds of plankton it will stimulate, and how much carbon storage this can actually yield,” said Nick Hawco, assistant professor in oceanography at UH Mānoa. “Similar to how we test new medicines in clinical trials, some of these questions can only be answered with carefully controlled ocean trials.”
“This is the first time in over a decade that the marine scientific community has come together to endorse a specific research plan for ocean iron,” said lead author, Ken Buesseler, executive director of the Exploring Ocean Iron Solutions program, and Senior Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry Department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
In the study, researchers focus on five key activities: field studies in the northeast Pacific Ocean; regional, global, and field study modeling; testing various forms of iron and delivery methods, which have differing advantages and disadvantages; advancing monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) for carbon and eMRV (which focuses on examining ecological changes); and advancing social science and governance efforts to go hand in hand with the physical science efforts.
Craig Richard Glenn, professor of Earth Sciences at University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa,passed away on September 5, 2024 after a four-year battle with severe health problems. Glenn is known worldwide for his pioneering research on submarine groundwater discharge in Hawaiʻi, especially in developing and applying remote sensing techniques. Additionally, he was a key instructor in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) for essential and famous courses in sedimentology, stratigraphy and marine geology, and he was heavily engaged in service to the scientific community.
Glenn joined the department (formerly the Department of Geology and Geophysics) at the UH Mānoa in the late 1980’s and served for over 35 years. He obtained his bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Earth Science at University of California – Santa Cruz, and his doctoral in Marine Geology at the University of Rhode Island, and then spent a year as a Research Fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
During his early career, Glenn’s research focused on modern and ancient paleoproductivity and marine authigenic mineral formation. In the early 2000’s he led a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to use aerial thermal infrared imagery to map submarine groundwater discharge along the Kona coast of Hawai‘i. The project produced numerous high-resolution, spatially extensive images illustrating the leaky nature of the coastal zone and abundant groundwater discharge into the ocean. The images have not been surpassed in quality and extent since, and are proudly displayed in the hallway of NSF’s Virginia headquarters.
More recently, Glenn led the Department of Health and Army Corps of Engineering-funded landmark study titled the “Lahaina Groundwater Tracer Study”, which became the basis of a U.S. Supreme Court decision about the vital role of groundwater on the health of the nation’s oceans, rivers, and lakes. “The court found that point source discharges to navigable waters through groundwater are regulated under the Clean Water Act. ” (reference link). Justice Breyer is cited in expressing how impressed he was with the science articulated about groundwater pollution, “The scientists really convinced me they’re geniuses and they can trace all kinds of things…” (reference link).
The Department of Earth Sciences in memoriam story noted, “This is an example of Professor Glenn’s excellence in bringing together scientists and stakeholders to address tough problems in water resources. He has since continued to advance our understanding of submarine groundwater discharge via source tracking of nutrients and recharge, and improved remote sensing techniques.”
Glenn was an incredibly dedicated mentor, having served as primary advisor to more than twenty Master’s and doctoral students, many of whom are leaders in environmental services and/or research. In service to the scientific community, he was a member of the Society for Sedimentary Geology, the International Association of Sedimentologists, and the American Geophysical Union. Craig participated in five UNESCO-IUGS International Geological Correlation Programs, was the Co-Chair and founder of the SEPM Research Group on Marine Authigenesis, FRiends Of Marine AuthiGEsis (FROMAGE), and chaired the 2017 Geological Society of America Cordilleran Section Meeting in Honolulu. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2000.
Glenn has been a highly valued collaborator, colleague, and good friend. He was blessed to have had the loving support of his two daughters and good friends.
