The Red Sea: Unexplored depths for marine science research
The Red Sea, nearly 2,000 km long, encompasses a rich and extremely diverse ecosystem. With its huge system of coral reefs that run along both of its long shorelines, it is, as Professor James Luyten explained during the Red Sea Research Center Inauguration (RSRC) on April 9, 2011, "a precious resource that offers many opportunities."
"With those opportunities comes much responsibility to protect and safeguard the reefs, because coral reefs are endangered worldwide and are subject to increased pollution, overfishing, destruction through coastal development, careless exploitation, and increasing ocean temperatures and acidity levels," said Luyten, Founding Director of the RSRC.
The best way to protect the reefs and to conserve the health of the Red Sea is to have sound scientific understanding of its resources. Until now, no comprehensive assessment of these resources has been attempted, despite the fact that nine countries in the Middle East and Africa have Red Sea shoreline.
Although observations of the winds, currents, and physical properties in the Red Sea have been made for hundreds of years, most likely since people in the region began to set sail on the sea, most of these observations are of limited use to modern oceanographers and marine scientists, because of their limited accuracy and resolution in space and time, explained Luyten.
Indeed, there has never been a concerted scientific effort to observe the physical, chemical, and biological environment of the Red Sea at sufficient detail and resolution to provide the foundation for a predictive ocean model of the sea.
Fundamental research objectives
The goal of the RSRC at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology is to conduct fundamental research on the Red Sea and to develop such a model to begin an assessment of its living resources using state-of-the-art scientific research methods.
Even before the University opened in 2009, scientists affiliated with the RSRC began a comprehensive program of observations to understand the physical, chemical, and biological structure of the Red Sea. These ongoing observations will allow the scientists in the Center to develop a comprehensive ocean model to forecast ocean currents, temperature, salinity, and sea level using the most modern and sophisticated instrumentation and analytical methods available.
As more comprehensive observations of the biological variability become available, ecological modeling will be included as well. The facilities and equipment at the University, noted Luyten, are "extraordinary." The Core Labs provide genomics, analytical, and imaging equipment along with high-performance computing, visualization, and modeling capabilities; coupled with the sea vessels, diving equipment, and support, the marine scientists have all they need at their fingertips.
"There are very few places in the world, perhaps none other than here at KAUST, where a scientist can take his or her students and research team out to the reef in the morning, do two dives to collect samples, return to the lab with the samples and then work on those samples in the lab in the afternoon," says Luyten.
The close proximity of the reefs to all the equipment a marine scientist could need has attracted faculty members, students, and many collaborators to KAUST.
"Because the Red Sea is largely unexplored and our understanding of it remains incomplete, we have a wonderful opportunity here to do breakthrough science," said Luyten.
'Massive' marine science research potential
Professor Terry Hughes, from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University and keynote speaker at the recent Red Sea Research Center Symposium, echoed Luyten's point: "There is massive potential for marine science research in the Red Sea as it is understudied compared to other oceans around the world."
"Fundamental marine research has to be done as a basis for future investigation. Developing it will be a never-ending task, but establishing it will be a great step forward."
The Symposium this year marked the official opening of the RSRC and brought together researchers from around the world who are working to understand the ecosystem of the Red Sea. They reported on their results from recent expeditions and field and modeling work in the Red Sea and on the potential applications of these results to similar systems around the world.
Not a one-off event, the Symposium will be held periodically to continue the dialogue between RSRC scientists and their colleagues and collaborators from around the world about what they are finding below the surface of the sea.
Observing the ocean's interior
And getting below the surface is essential. "While satellites can provide an important global perspective and increasing spatial resolution, they only observe the skin of the ocean, not its interior," explained Luyten.
"Observations of temperature, color, height, and a host of other parameters also tell us only about the surface skin. Only direct observations of the interior of the ocean will provide the necessary information about the internal structure — the currents, the distribution of temperature, salinity, nutrients, dissolved gases, as well as the marine organisms from bacteria to fish."
The principal tools for these observations will be a comprehensive network of long-term moorings, sensors deployed on and along the reefs as well as moored on the bottom, instruments drifting with the water movements, and shipboard observations, all aiming at revealing the physics, chemistry, and biology of the Red Sea.
In the first stage of the work, the marine scientists are now establishing a coral reef monitoring project and beginning to collect data in the direct vicinity of the University. This project builds upon the reef surveys along the Saudi coast completed in 2009 and 2010 and will study the changing reef environment, coral health, and changes in the microbial populations of symbiotic algae and other microbes.
There have also been two research cruises in Saudi waters for the scientists to make initial assessments of the deepest areas of the sea and to begin to observe the currents and property distributions. In the future, they will extend their observations throughout the Red Sea. A third shipboard expedition is planned for the fall of 2011.
The observations will include the ocean currents, temperature, salinity, and other biologically relevant parameters and, where possible, meteorological measurements. The scientists will establish time series measurements of CO2 and seawater pH, as the threat of seawater acidification is of particular relevance to coral ecosystems. They will also install sensors for continuous observations of phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish in various locations in the sea.
From the ocean to the lab
The data collected from the instruments will be assimilated into numerical models of the ocean and atmosphere of our shores. "This is the first time that all these various types of observations can be made on the same scale," said Prof. Luyten, "allowing our oceanographers and modelers to speak in the same language as our biologists and atmosphere scientists."
Red Sea observations and data not only bring together biologists and oceanographers, but mathematicians and engineers as well. The RSRC is the only center at KAUST that touches all three divisions: Chemical Life Sciences and Engineering (CLSE), Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering (MCSE), and Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE).
This multidisciplinary approach is what is challenging at most other oceanographic institutes in the world, said Luyten, but it has been carefully woven into the fabric of the RSRC. "We talk with each other at RSRC," explained Luyten, "which is the only way we will come to a comprehensive understanding of the amazing resource that is right here at our doorstep."