Since 1978 the Oceanic Flux Program (OFP) has been studying particle fluxes in the deep Sargasso Sea. This year, the OFP celebrates 35 years of continuous measurements, making it the longest running time-series of its kind. “This is a monumental achievement for oceanography and for the US National Science Foundation, which supports the OFP. It is remarkable to look back at all we have learned about the workings of the deep ocean since the OFP began. And as we add ever more sophisticated instruments on the OFP mooring, it is really exciting to look forward to more discoveries about the deep,” says Dr. Maureen Conte, Associate Scientist at BIOS and Adjunct Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory Ecosystems Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

BIOS’s newest gliders made their research debut in late September when they slipped into waters near St. David’s Head and headed to a predetermined destination 50 miles offshore Bermuda. For the next nine months, the duo known as Jack and Minnie will use their payload of scientific sensors to record daily changes in water chemistry and currents, as the summer cap of warm surface waters is mixed and replaced with cooler, nutrient-rich waters from below, and tiny microbes and phytoplankton respond to the changing conditions.

New grants from the National Science Foundation will extend and improve two long-term climate observation programs led by BIOS scientists.

For the last nine years, students in the Earth Science program at the University of Oxford in England have visited BIOS to gain first-hand knowledge of coastal and deep-water oceanography, as well as the unique geology of Bermuda.

For nearly a hundred years, scientists have known that plankton—the microscopic organisms that drift and float in the ocean, also known as marine microbes—form the basis of the ocean’s food web. Phytoplankton (literally “plant wanderers”) are photosynthetic, like their terrestrial counterparts, and convert sunlight into energy. Phytoplankton, in turn, are consumed by zooplankton (literally “animal wanderers”), as well as a host of larger marine organisms, including juvenile fish, shellfish, birds, and even whales. However, scientists are now learning that plankton play an even larger role in earth’s complex biogeochemical systems.

Amid growing concern regarding the current federal funding climate for ocean science research, the National Science Foundation (NSF) just announced continued support for the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) research program at BIOS. According to Dr. Nicholas Bates, Senior Scientist and Associate Director of Research at BIOS and Principal Investigator of the BATS project, “This represents about $14 million from NSF to BIOS over the next five years: approximately $6 million for research and roughly another $8 million to support science days at sea aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer.” This announcement comes on the heels of a $4 million award from NSF last year to support Hydrostation S, the world’s longest-running hydrographic time-series, for another five years. Together, these two awards represent a significant commitment by NSF to ocean time-series off Bermuda.

From October 18-25, 2013, a group of scientists and technicians were at sea aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer on a very special Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) research cruise marking the program’s 25th year. Like many anniversary celebrations, this one involved cake (more on that in a bit!) but—unlike most celebrations—it also involved a variety of oceanographic science.

In the late 1980s Rod Johnson was working in the UK civil service—a “fantastic job” by his own account—when he attended a meeting concerning the Global Ocean Flux Study (GOFS). During this meeting a topic of discussion was how Bermuda and Hawaii would be pivotal in achieving the GOFS objectives of understanding biogeochemical variability in the oceans and the impact of climate change on these processes.  At the time, Johnson’s girlfriend (Sarah), now his wife, had just moved to Bermuda and, in a move that would impact the course of his career, he decided to contact Dr. Tony Knap, then-Director of BIOS (at the time BBS), to inquire about employment opportunities.

In the late 1980s scientists at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) were looking for a way to meaningfully contribute to the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS). This international program involved the creation and maintenance of monitoring stations around the world, each collecting vast amounts of data on dissolved carbon in the ocean and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. BIOS was already home to Hydrostation S (an ocean data time-series station established in 1954), but the scientists envisioned a time-series station that could provide long-term measurements from the open ocean off Bermuda.

Successful scientific research is rarely a one-person endeavor, particularly when the research is interdisciplinary in nature, or requires field or laboratory investigations in multiple environments. The collaborative nature of modern ocean science research is evident in a recent publication in Science Advances, the peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.