Ocean Station Papa

The US and Canada have been continuously collecting weather and climate data in the North Pacific since 1949. This remote location, known as Station Papa, was first occupied by US and Canadian Coast Guard weather ships, then incorporated into ongoing ship-based oceanographic research via the Fisheries and Oceans Canada Line P Program. Since June 2007, NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory Ocean Climate Stations program has maintained a central surface mooring at Station Papa.

Today, the location is also home to several other moorings, including a Noise Reference Station (NRS02), a University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory Waverider, and an Ocean Observatories Initiative Global Array.

Research assets at Station Papa: (D) NOAA Papa Surface Mooring, (F) NOAA Noise Reference Station NRS02, (E) University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory Waverider, (A, B, C) Ocean Observatories Initiative Global Array, and National Science Foundation gliders. Graphic: NOAA PMEL.

This month, NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson sailed to Station Papa to deploy a new 2020 central surface mooring, noise reference station NRS02, and a waverider. We also recovered the 2019 surface mooring and NRS02, and tracked down the 2019 waverider which had broken free of its anchor, but was still transmitting its location via AIS.

Papa, NRS02, and Waverider arrived at the NOAA Marine Operations Center in Newport, Oregon on July 25, 2020. Photo: Heather Rippman.

NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson departed from Newport, Oregon on August 11, 2020. The Papa buoy on the platform, anchors (old train wheels) on deck, and thousands of meters of jacketed steel cable and nylon lines for three moorings on the net reels. Photo: Heather Rippman.

Station Papa mooring diagram. PDF: NOAA PMEL.

Oceanographic sensors are installed on jacketed steel cable below the mooring. Photo: LT Laura Dwyer.

With some of the subsurface instruments already in the water, the surface buoy is lifted from the stern with the A-frame. Photo: LT Laura Dwyer.

Dyson crew members attach additional instruments along 315 meters (1033 feet) of jacketed steel cable under the buoy. Photo: LT Laura Dwyer.

The buoy will be towed behind the ship at a speed of 1.5-2 knots (about 2 miles per hour) until it is fully assembled. Ultimately, it will trail behind us on all 4200+ meters (almost 14,000 feet) of wire and nylon line that will connect it to its anchor on the sea floor. Photo: LT Laura Dwyer.

This acoustic release will attach the mooring to its anchor. Next year, the ship that recovers this mooring will use a transceiver to send a code to this device and release the mooring from its anchor. We’ll do the same later on this cruise, when we recover the 2019 moorings. Photo: LT Laura Dwyer.

The Papa mooring’s 6850-pound anchor is lifted onto the platform as Dyson approaches the mooring’s final position. Photo: Rodney Terry.

Once we’ve dropped the anchor, it might take 30 minutes to fall all the way to its final location on the sea floor more than 4200 meters (almost 14,000 feet) below. We’ll sail by later to take photos and record the mooring’s exact final position.

The 2020 Station Papa surface mooring after deployment on August 15, 2020. Photo: Heather Rippman.

2020 Station Papa surface mooring current anchor position: 50° 2.5’N, 144° 51.9’W. Graphic: NOAA PMEL.

With the largest 2020 mooring now deployed, we have two more to release.

The Noise Reference Station NRS02. Photo: Heather Rippman.

Update: Read more about NRS moorings in my update about the NRS01 mooring and other hydrophones deployed from Dyson in the Alaskan Arctic.

The Waverider is attached to its anchor system with a long polypropylene line, which allows freedom of movement at the surface. Photo: Heather Rippman. Diagram: UW APL.

Waverider has an iridium satellite link to the Coastal Data Information Program at Scripps, which translates data from its 3-axis accelerometer into wave measurement and swell forecasts.

And now, there’s space on deck to recover last year’s moorings. We used the ship’s release transducer to enable each release, check its distance from us, and then trigger it to detach from the anchor and send the moorings floating to the surface/drifting so that we could pick them up.