Methane Plume Emissions Associated with Puget Sound Faults in the Cascadia Forearc

Abstract

This research requires a scientific staff with a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds, a strong technical support staff, and a research approach that integrates field, laboratory, and analytical efforts. The staff is organized into six research groups sharing a disciplinary or technical focus (fig. 1). The interdisciplinary projects constituting most of PMEL's activity --_ surface temperature distributions in the equatorial ocean. Heat transport by major western boundary currents, the Gulf Stream and Kuroshio in the Northern Hemisphere, are also postulated to have an important impact on world cli mate. Studies during 1982 focused on the Florida Current as part of the Subtropical Atlantic Climate Study (STACS) and the Kuroshi0 in the vicinity of the Emperor Seamounts. These two studies will provide insight into the fluctuations of two of the world's major currents. PMEL is also conducting two unique marine-chemistry re search activities for NOAA under the National Climate Program. These activities relate to the ocean's behavior as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, which has been steadi ly increasing over the past century. One project measures the flux of human-made fluorocarbons into the ocean in order to trace gaseous diffusion across the ocean-atmosphere boundary. The other project is examining the role of biolo gically produced, particulate calcium carbonate as an ab sorber of carbon dioxide at high latitudes. Together these studies will help determine the potential of the oceans for absorbing carbon dioxide. OCEAN SERVICES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENTThe goal of the PMEL program in ocean services is to im prove NOAA's capabilities for providing information, fore casts, and warnings of possible environmental hazards to people in the offshore and coastal areas of the United States. PMEL scientists, in conjunction with personnel from NOAA operational elements, have identified priority areas where directed research can provide substantial improvement in marine forecasting and prediction. Research under way in 1982 was aimed at predicting the movement of the Bering Sea ice edge, predicting coastal wave conditions at harbor entrances, and improving tsunami forecasts and warnings in the Pacific Basin. The U.