2.6: Conduct an Investigation

All scientific investigations take time, patience, and funding. But ocean science presents special challenges. At least eight broad and overlapping approaches characterize the discipline of oceanography:

• laboratory investigation, usually carried out in a laboratory or special facility outfitted with instrumentation, artificial habitats, and other tools for conducting controlled experiments and observations
• oceangoing (or field) investigation, typically carried out in the ocean, including along the shore, using snorkel or scuba, or on a small vessel, large ship, submersible, or other manned vehicle
• robotic investigation, using remotely operated vehicles, autonomous vehicles, drifters, gliders, and similar craft
• time-series investigation, using instruments deployed on moorings, autonomous seafloor instruments, and cabled ocean observatories
• animal-tagging investigation, in which oceanographers attach instrument packages to marine mammals (e.g., elephant seals) or large fishes (e.g., great white sharks)
• aerial investigation (confined to Earth’s atmosphere), including instruments flown on drones, tethered balloons, and manned aircraft
• spaceborne investigation, mostly carried out by instruments aboard satellites but occasionally conducted by instruments and personnel aboard spacecraft and space stations
• computer modeling investigation, ranging from studies done on personal computers to those requiring supercomputers

An oceanographic research program may include any or all of the above approaches. Investigations may be carried out by a single investigator or multiple investigators. They may be supported by undergraduate and graduate research assistants, postdoctoral researchers, lab and field technicians, and personnel from private industry. An investigator may work with colleagues at their own institution or collaborate with colleagues, students, technicians from multiple institutions. The largest oceanographic programs involve scientists from across the globe cooperating on different aspects of a scientific problem and sharing the costs of personnel, equipment, travel, and ships. It’s not uncommon to find people from different countries spending several weeks at sea together, working through language barriers, getting used to different customs, and attempting to enjoy what are often unfamiliar foods (like fiskeboller). It works (most of the time) because everyone depends on each other for assistance and safety and is focused on a common goal.

As a real-life example, an international expedition involving hundreds of researchers from 19 countries began a yearlong mission aboard the icebreaker Polarstern in the Arctic Ocean in September 2019. Dubbed the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate, or MOSAiC, the expedition froze their ship into the ice to conduct investigations designed to shed new light on climate change. MOSAiC, the largest shipboard polar expedition ever mounted, recalls the historic journey of Norwegian oceanographer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930). Nansen froze his round-bottom wooden sailing ship, Fram, into the Arctic ice from 1893 to 1896. (He’s also the only oceanographer to win a Nobel Prize, albeit for his humanitarian work.) Oceanographers participating in the MOSAiC mission—which ended in October 2020—were able to take measurements and perform experiments at polar latitudes over all four seasons, including Arctic winter. Though larger than most, MOSAiC serves as just one example of dozens of similar oceanographic investigations carried out in coastal waters and across the world ocean annually.