Air-Sea Interaction Mooring Group
The Air-Sea Interaction Mooring Group deploys surface buoys for air-sea interaction research as well as research in oceanic and atmospheric boundary layers. Principal platforms include 2 Extreme Air-Sea Interaction (EASI) buoys plus 5 Air-Sea Interaction Spar (ASIS) buoys.
Faculty Specialists:
William Drennan, Hans Graber
Aircraft Center for Earth Studies (ACES)
The Aircraft Center for Earth Studies focuses on science-driven sensing and technology development for next-generation instruments that help us better understand our world and benefit humanity. ACES operates with a primary focus on developing novel instrumentation and information systems. The two main facilities include the Aircraft Hanger and the main Laboratory with an Optical Bench and testing.
Faculty Specialists:
Ved Chirayath
Center for Computational Science (CCS)
High performance computing is an essential part of research for all scientists in OCE. The world-class supercomputers at the University of Miami’s CCS fuel the computer modeling and data analysis necessary to perform cutting-edge research.
Faculty Specialists:
Mohamed Iskandarani, Igor Kamenkovich, Villy Kourafalou
Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS)
CSTARS hosts a real-time, high-resolution satellite data reception and analysis facility. Daily imagery covers the Eastern US, Central America, the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Seas. Imagery for specialized applications can be acquired from anywhere around the globe. Applications range from disaster planning and response, to coastal currents and water quality. CSTARS imagery contributed to the monitoring of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and assessment of Hurricane Katrina damage, and contributes to scientific research related to wind, wave, and currents globally.
Faculty Specialists:
Hans Graber, Roland Romeiser
Chemistry Laboratories
OCE scientists and students analyze their samples using analytical instrumentation in our extensive chemistry laboratories. A wide variety of parameters can be quantified, including inorganic nutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon; particulate and dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen; trace elements and their stable isotopes; inorganic carbon species; individual organic compounds and their stable isotope ratios; alkalinity, salinity, and pH; density; and tracers such as tritium, iron, CFCs, and SF6. These measurements are used for many applications, including studies of ocean productivity, water mass formation and age, and anthropogenic carbon storage.
Chemistry labs in OCE include the Close Laboratory and the Tritium Laboratory.
Faculty Specialists:
Hilary Close, Dennis Hansell, Jim Happell, Kim Popendorf
Coastal Modeling Lab
The Coastal Modeling Lab has research and forecasting activities at a number of basin-wide, regional and coastal seas, including the Florida Straits, Gulf of Mexico, and the North Atlantic hurricane region.
Faculty Specialists:
Villy Kourafalou
Ocean Technology Group (OTECH)
Collecting scientific measurements from ships at sea is a combination of heavy-duty deck operations - using cranes, winches, cables, and flotation - and precision instrumentation and computation. OTECH comprises skilled technical staff, an inventory of instrumentation, and a mooring workshop to support OCE scientists and students’ sea-going experimental research worldwide. Equipment includes acoustic current meters, acoustic current profilers, profiling and moored CTDs (measuring salinity, temperature, and pressure), deep pressure gauges, and inverted echo-sounders.
Faculty Specialists:
Lisa Beal, Bill Johns
The Physical-Biological Interactions Laboratory (PBI Lab)
The Physical Biological Interactions Lab includes a dry lab, dedicated to instrument development and data analyses, including bio-acoustic data and three-dimensional image analyses from observations and numerical modeling, and a seawater lab, which includes a system of tanks designed to observe the swimming behavior of larvae and test and quantify their navigational skills. Faculty and students in the PBI Lab use their experiments for studies of larval dispersal and migration for the purposes of model parameterization and validation of their open-source Lagrangian stochastic model (the Connectivity Modeling System).
Faculty Specialists:
Claire Paris
Research Vessel F.G. Walton Smith and the UNOLS fleet
Our Research Vessel Walton Smith is part of the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet. She is a 96-foot-long catamaran accommodating 20 people with 1600 square feet of laboratory and stern space for scientific operations. We use this vessel to collect water samples and to test and deploy many types of instrumentation, including drifters, CTDs, current meters and moorings across the Straits of Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico. OCE scientists use other UNOLS vessels to make scientific observations throughout the world’s oceans, for instance in the Arctic, North Atlantic, and subtropical Indian Ocean.
Faculty Specialists:
Lisa Beal, Mike Brown, Will Drennan, Dennis Hansell, Bill Johns, Arthur Mariano, Tamay Ozgokmen
SUrge STructure Atmosphere INteraction Facility (SUSTAIN)
SUSTAIN is the only three-dimensional, wind-wave-storm surge simulator in the world capable of simulating Category 5 hurricane conditions. Researchers in OCE use SUSTAIN to study wave dynamics, air-sea interactions and the effects of storm surge.
Faculty Specialists:
Brian Haus
Upper Ocean Dynamics Laboratory
The Upper Ocean Dynamics Laboratory conducts experimental studies of coastal circulation processes and ocean-atmosphere interactions using a combination of satellite, aircraft, and in situ measurement and analysis techniques. Faculty and students in the laboratory specialize in deploying oceanographic and atmospheric sensors from research aircraft during hurricane passage. The laboratory also operates three high frequency radars that map real-time surface currents, winds, and waves around the coasts of South Florida.
Faculty Specialists:
L. Nick Shay
