By: Sarah Chatter Mentor: Roger P. Kelly Field: Marine Research Associate

 When Mr. Kelly was young, his family would go on vacation to the ocean every summer. He really enjoyed snorkeling and whale watching and just being near the ocean. This led to him wanting a career that would keep him near the ocean. Unlike Marine Biologists, who study specific living things in the ocean, Kelly wanted to “understand the ocean as a whole” so he studied oceanography in college. Eventually, he began to focus on chemical and biological oceanography. Since then, he has been an employee of URI since 2002.

 Mr. Kelly wasn’t too nervous about starting out because he became an MRA in a field that he spent the past 3 years studying. He had known how to perform activities that were expected of him. These activities involve determining how fast the gases enter the ocean. Kelly’s discovered that different parts of the ocean “dissolve” the water at different rates. For example, the freshest and coldest water usually dissolve the water faster. Overall, Kelly’s scientific study is very important to what we do.

 Mr. Kelly’s lab focuses on the marine carbon cycle. This focuses on studying how carbon moves from the atmosphere, to the ocean, and then into the ground. Through this study, they learned that carbon dioxide in the air can dissolve into the ocean. This helps phytoplankton conduct the process of photosynthesis. Along the way, some carbon dioxide is put back into the water and some is lost as waste. This waste can sink to the deep ocean, and carbon that is lost that way is removed from the atmosphere for a very long time.

Using elements such as radon, the scientists study these processes. The radon is used to help estimate how much “transfer” is happening between the ocean and the atmosphere. Thorium is used because it sticks to particles that sink such as waste or phytoplankton. Because these elements are not used by plants or animals, only physical or chemical processes such as air-sea gas exchange, control how much we find in the water. The dark blue line represents a spilling breaker, and the light blue line represents the amount of air above the ocean surface. The amount of stress in the atmosphere is shown. The green line is the turbulent stress, the red line is the viscous stress, and lastly, the orange line represents the wave-induced stress.

 For the past 4 weeks, Mr. Kelly has been on a cruise where he studies about air-sea gas exchange in ice water. Air-sea gas exchange is where the gases that make up the air we breathe can dissolve into the ocean under certain conditions. The ocean can give off gases that go back up to the atmosphere. The speed depends on things like how windy it is and even how warm or cold the air and water are. In the Arctic and Antarctic where there is ice cover, this will have a whole set of new data. This is where the water is completely covered with ice. However, Kelly’s prediction is that no gases can get in or out of the ocean. As compared to the water only being partially covered with ice, Mr. Kelly’s team has some guesses but no conclusions.

 Mr. Kelly is an expert in ocean conservation issues. In his field, he must provide research, analysis, communications, and administrative support. Although he provides support for future planning, scheduling, monitoring and reporting, he will sometimes also communicate with audiences about project activities, events, and results. Mr. Kelly has to also be able to focus on certain projects, such as the one he is doing now. Air-sea gas exchange is a complex yet fascinating topic. Overall, I think being a MRA is hard work that is in the end, beneficial.

 Thank you so much Roger Kelly for assisting me throughout this whole project. Without his cooperation, I would have no idea what being an MRA is all about.  Policy-and-Research-Associate Policy-and-Research-Associate  