As I sit here on Thanksgiving morning thinking of all I am thankful for, I think of many things but the CAICE intensive, just completed a little more than one week ago, keeps springing to mind. We ran a few days longer than we expected, but on November 15, we officially stopped sampling with all instruments.
Due to the dedication of the team of scientists involved in this project, we took full advantage of the suite of measurements to run experiments 24/7 for the final 10 days. In the final 5 days, thanks to input (and samples) from our biology colleagues, we ran a complete mesocosm experiment, studying how a mixture of bacteria, viruses, and other ocean critters affect the chemistry of the seawater and in turn, these changes affect the chemistry of sea spray. Our experiments went from “simple” filtered seawater to single “critter” additions covering a range of properties to the full complexity of a real mesocosm bloom. We did all that we set out to do and more with many exciting surprises along the way. I will say that the one thing that sticks out in my mind is how much easier it is to see instantaneous changes and make sense of the chemical complexity when you know for a fact you are looking at one source, in this case, sea spray. This study has already helped our group explain critical observations we have seen countless times in field studies but never been able to explain. It reinforces exactly why we moved the real world to the lab to perform complex chemistry experiments. I think
Chemical complexity...the soup of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, organics, salts...formed some very interesting aerosols...
we will be able to clearly show how this represents a new approach for “integrating reductionist and complexity approaches to solve complicated problems”, one of the grand NSF challenges we set out to address.
Everyone is recovering now, but feeling extremely rewarded by all we have accomplished as a collective group. The fruits of all of our labor will become evident in the coming weeks and months, as we merge all we have found into one set of stories. I want to personally thank everyone who has been involved in this study, Hlab staff, grad, undergrad, postdocs, faculty, and advisors, for your dedication to this CAICE project.
It has been a wonderful experience, one of the best of my 20 year career, working with everyone involved and I look forward to digging more deeply into the results together. Today, I am thankful for all we were able to accomplish together–but I can’t help feeling that this is just the beginning of a long and productive scientific journey….
Here’s to hoping everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving…
Kimberly A. Prather, Director of CAICE (http://caice.ucsd.edu)