by Jason Gonsalves, MLML Physical Oceanography Lab

Eco-consciousness at first seems like an individual choice without wider implications. Working with Green Seal this past summer revealed the attachment of this behavior to anentire market through a process called ecolabeling. Green Seal generates “rigorous standards for health, sustainability and product performance” that aim to drive “permanent shifts in the marketplace, empowering better purchasing decisions and rewarding industry innovators.” As an intern in the Science & Standards Department with Green Seal, I witnessed both how widespread these labels are, and how companies concern themselves with being portrayed as ‘environmentally friendly’, so much so that they’d pay to be certified by ecolabeling nonprofits like Green Seal. At a moment where conservation of the environment is increasingly more popular and desired, I began to wonder about how valuable science (and by extension conservation) is to the economy.

A 2020 report from Gutleber states that “science and technology underpin much of the advance of human welfare and the long-term progress of our civilization.” The focus of Gutleber’s report is on the efficacy of investing in particle physics, noting “large-scale instruments can also offer positive returns for the economy and society as well as many opportunities for industry and enable co-innovation through international collaboration.” However, these benefits could be extended to other scientific operations as innovation expands in other disciplines. Has the expansion of science into the mainstream world created market value for scientific interpretation?

Does scientific advancement generate revenue?

Globally, there are research initiatives that are contributing considerable economic growth. Examples of this are organizations like the National Institute of Health (NIH), which generates $2.21 in additional economic output for every $1 spent on biomedical innovation. In Australia, government analysts released a report in 2015 recognizing around $145 billion a year in revenue from innovation in science and research.

Other than direct production from research endeavors, improvements in scientific fields have led to the preservation of assets in world resources. A 2015 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report estimated ocean assets (i.e. fishing, aquaculture, tourism, education, shipping) totalling over $24 trillion in value. Anthropogenic effects like habitat destruction, pollution, overfishing and climate change have begun to chip away at that value. Advances in ocean sustainability, coastal management and new technology are crucial to maintaining the value of critical resources like the ocean.

The business perspective on science

Investment into scientific innovation is clearly profitable, and the numbers show that the corporate world should build this into their framework. However, over the past 30 years, there has been a considerable decline in corporate R&D on basic research concepts as opposed to late stage development. A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) 2015 report found that companies are still patenting new products, but those patents are being acquired from other places.

It seems corporations have become more interested in the products of science as opposed to scientific applicability. Large-scale R&D has been beneficial to society, but there is a possibility that it is not commercially viable. Looking at it from a business perspective, the biggest obstacle is the viability for shareholder returns. It’s clearly imperative that not only the United States, but the world not lose sight of the importance in advancing scientific discovery. How do we pitch investing in science more effectively to corporations?

Reinvigorating the corporate conversation on scientific innovation

The same Australian study concludes that in societies with an ‘advanced’ economy (i.e., a high standard of living), science underpinned 10-15% of economic activity. In order for continued economic growth, the logical undertone would be that science and technology will require further development. To return to an age of rapid scientific progress and innovation, the conversation must be approached from both an academic and economic standpoint.

Academia has long been considered an ‘ivory tower,’ and accessibility to information from non-scientists has been difficult for a number of years. This mentality created a gap in trust and accountability between the public and scientists, but recent data shows that could be changing. Pew Research Center’s 2020 polling data shows that 73% of Americans believe science has positively impacted society, and 82% expect future developments to also be impactful. Public confidence in scientists has also increased, the same data noting 35% of Americans fully trust scientists (up from 29% in 2016) and 51% have a fair amount of trust for scientists.

There is still more work to be done about the transparency of science, however, with that same 2020 polling data showing two-in-ten or fewer Americans don’t believe scientists are transparent about their conflicts of interest, and less than two-in-ten Americans believe scientists admit and take responsibility for their mistakes. This seems to be remedied in the study, with 57% of Americans saying they trust scientists more when data is publicly available.

Solving the divide between the public and the scientific community should restore scientific advancement to the forefront of social and economic development. Only time will tell if the efforts scientists are currently making will be enough to shorten that gap.

By Jason Gonsalves, MLML Physical Oceanography Lab

You don’t have to be actively involved in the larger national discussion to know that climate change is an increasingly sensitive topic, even in 2021. As unbelievable as it may sound, the chances of someone in your social circle not being under the impression that global warming is happening are shockingly high. In a 2020 survey, an estimated 72% of Americans think global warming is happening right now. When adjusting to a more specific question, that same survey showed that only 57% of Americans believe global warming is occurring as a result of human activities.

By Drew Burrier, Physical Oceanography Lab

That title was used in a movie to describe the hope that springs eternal at the start of a new baseball season and it has always stuck with me. Perhaps it comes from growing up in Cleveland, Ohio a city famous (until recently) for middling sports performance. And yet, every year, that first day of the season possesses a certain magic. The idea that this is the year, this is the year that it all comes together. On the first day of the season, teams and fan bases alike truly believes that they are headed to the World Series. That is the beauty of a season of promise, not yet touched by disappointment or shortcomings.

You might find it odd to be talking about the start of baseball season as the leaves are starting to change colors and falls cool morning are upon us and as pennant races are all but settled. Or for this subject to appear on a graduate student marine science blog, however for students all over the country strapping on their backpacks, the fall carries with it a spring sense of rebirth.

Here at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories this spirit is upon us once again. For the newest cohort, it is perhaps most obvious. They have come from all over the world to start their graduate work in marine science. It is an exciting time filled with promise. Some have come straight from the undergraduate programs and others have come from internships and full-time jobs. Yet they all carry with them the promise of a life remade by the commitment of time and energy they are about to dedicate to studying the earth’s ocean environs. For all of us Moss Landing marks the beginning of our careers as marine scientists. For the returning students, fresh off a summer mired in thesis work, the fall is also a time for shifting gears and buckling down to accomplish a new task. Our data collection has wrapped up, and now it is time to analyze what we’ve done in the field, and coalesce that into a polished, cogent work of science.

For me, it is my last fall here at the labs. And as my emerging crow’s feet and increasing waistline elicit a fall spirit, I am once again gripped by the promise that this new school year holds. Now the labors of 4 years come to fruition as I prepare to defend my thesis. At the same time I am planning for a life outside these walls, (as tough as giving up my office view will be), as critical a component of one's graduate work as defending it.

And so to the new cohort joining our ranks I bid you welcome, and best wishes as you begin this new chapter. To those of you returning from a summer spent fleshing out thesis projects I wish you happy hunting as you progress. Finally to my fellow fall defenders I wish you happy resolutions and fond memories as you put the finishing touches on this chapter and start the next. May this truly be a season of perfection.

By Drew Burrier

When I originally conceived of this post 2 months ago I thought it would be a reflection of my experiences presenting my research at a major science conference for the first time.

It has since morphed into something else.

The third week of December I joined 20,000 of my colleagues in

the Earth Sciences at the 2016 fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. I was one of around 8,000 students who arrived in San Francisco to present one of the 15,000 posters that would be displayed over the course of the week. It’s hard to describe the emotions of a graduate student attending their first conference. Its how I imagine a promising pitcher feels when they walk into a big league locker room after having been called up from the minors. They have left the relative comfort of the minor leagues, and are now face to face with their idols, the people they have admired in their profession from afar, never thinking it possible that they could one day compete on that level. They must ask themselves: “am I good enough to be here?”

By Drew Burrier

There are days that change you. One minute you are chasing what you thought was your dream, and then something comes along that changes your trajectory. Those days are rare, and can come to define one’s entire purpose in life.

For me that day was my first day at sea, working to unravel it’s mysteries aboard the R/V Pt. Sur. I had fallen in love with the ocean before, and knew that I wanted to become a scientist, but that day would come to change just exactly what aspect of Marine Science would become my life’s pursuit.

Prior to this cruise, whales and dolphins had dominated my interest in the ocean. They are charismatic and graceful, and inspire wonder in anyone able to view them in their world. I had been involved in research projects with these wondrous animals armed with a camera lens and a fast boat. So it was strange that a day at sea lowering instruments into the water and pulling them back up could supplant the sense of adventure I had already experienced. This particular cruise, however, was for the Physical Oceanography class that I had enrolled in at Moss Landing Marine Labs. Physical oceanography is the study of the physical properties of the ocean, or more bluntly, it is the study of how energy is put into and distributed in the global ocean. I had never considered it as a field I was interested in, or that it could even be an option for my career, but by the end of that day at sea, I new that I was not the same person that had left the dock.  It turned out the mysteries that I was most interested in, that appealed to me the most were not the creatures roaming the depths, but the awe-inspiring forces that shape our planet.

Last week I served as the Graduate Assistant for that same Physical Oceanography class and was able to observe the students in my class going through this same experience that had such a profound impact on me. The goal of this cruise was not simply to expose students to the joys of working at sea, but to hunt for elusive giants in oceanography: internal waves.

Internal waves are very similar to the surface waves you are most likely familiar with, with the exception that they oscillate within the ocean rather than at its surface, like the waves you may have surfed. The difficulty in studying these waves, however, is that they occur in parts of the ocean that are challenging to reach and require special instruments to be able to detect. One such suite of instruments is called a CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth), which is lowered through the ocean via a winch and measures the key components of density in the ocean, namely temperature, salinity (extrapolated from conductivity) and pressure (depth). These properties are unique throughout the world ocean and determine how internal waves behave because just like at the surface, waves propagate along density boundaries. The second tool we use to detect internal waves is an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), which in simplest terms is an underwater speaker and microphone that makes a sound at a known frequency (pitch) and then listens for the return signal. The change in that pitch is related to the direction and speed that the current the sound wave passes through. You’ve undoubtedly experienced this if you’ve ever been standing still when a truck passed you blaring its horn. The sound at the truck is never changing, but since it is moving away from you, you perceive a pitch change. As internal waves pass the ADCP the velocity of the water at various depths tells us a lot about the characteristics of the internal waves.

As I watched my class donning life jackets and hard helmets, fighting the roll of the ship and the occasional wave spilling over the aft deck, straining to guide the heavy instrumentation on and off of the deck, wet and tired but undaunted, I couldn’t help but return their beaming smiles. Working aboard an oceanographic vessel is no simple feat, but for some reason nobody ever sees it as work. Not the first time, and not the 1,000^th. It is an endless adventure that will continue to reward the persistent. I can certainly appreciate that not everyone gravitates to the field of oceanography as I have. But I can say with confidence, having seen it in the eyes of my students, that there is something universally magical about one’s first research cruise. I experienced it and it changed my life. The beauty of this field is that, there’s always something new to learn and experience.